


Seducing the Princess

by obsidians



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Bottom Cloud Strife, F/M, First Time, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm Bad At Tagging, Loss of Innocence, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Reno's a Fucked up Teenager, Teen Angst, Tifa's a Hormonal Teenager, Top Sephiroth, Yaoi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-03 15:03:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14571555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obsidians/pseuds/obsidians
Summary: Tifa's a privileged fifteen year old girl from Nibelheim and Reno's a sixteen year old guy from the slums of Midgar, who is forced to attend school there for an early release program in hopes of reforming him. Neither have anything in common but a strange lust that drives them together. Can fire and ice survive together?





	1. Chapter 1

The residents of Nibelheim wondered why the do-gooders of the world had to send the teenaged juvenile delinquents from the slums of Midgar, to their town to attend their private schools with their own children, to give them a chance to experience a different way of life.  


Those same ten delinquents wondered why they had to go to a stupid, dead end town that had nothing more to offer them then the sight of livestock, strict rules and being forced to attend the local high school, where they obviously weren't wanted. They couldn't even get pussy because even the homely girls were snatched up by the local boys.  
  
Silently, both groups agreed it to be a stupid idea.  


Reno was sick of it all: he was sick of the mountains, he was sick of cows, he was sick of fresh air and clear skies full of twinkling stars and his blue balls irked him the most. The town had slim pickings when it came to pretty girl as it was and they were all hooked up...though many did give him the same look girls had been giving him since he was fourteen.  
  
He knew he was lucky how girls seemed to be attracted to him in an almost supernatural way, ergo he was used to getting laid whenever he wanted ergo, he was frustrated beyond anything and missing his woman! Sure, they weren't monogamous, but still.....  
  
He kicked a pebble and decided that did nothing. At the age of sixteen, he'd done too much, seen too much and was jaded beyond his years. He was sixteen going on thirty-five. He clung to his gang jacket and glared challenge at everyone. He didn't give a fuck whether a bunch of hayseeds liked him or not.  
  
He certainly stood out with his flame bright hair, that he'd grown just past his waist. His gang tattoos, he proudly wore on his cheekbones and tight clothing. He looked good and knew it, his body was lean, but muscular. He'd been compared to a jungle cat: beautiful and majestic, but deadly. He was rangy and stalwart and always ready for action....when there was none to be had.  
  
The locals were a suspicious lot that looked at him as if he'd been caught raping their daughters when he'd done nothing more than ogle a couple of the local hotties. If a girl was pretty, he was going to look. Simple enough.  
  
None of the other delinquents had been in the same gang as him, they strove to keep them apart. However, most of the other boys sent with him treated him as if he were their leader. They clung together as they were completely out of their depths. Here, they were supposedly welcome with open arms, yet there were tons of rules and they now had a curfew to be in their dorm by. None of the teenagers were used to being treated like this. Most didn't have parents and lived independently, doing what they wanted. So, to be treated like normal teenagers was unthinkable and insulted them.  
  
They lived in their dorm and kept to themselves and the townies did the same....and they got along just fine.  
  
"I think I'm getting blue balls" Reno complained.  
  
"Good thing you're really handy" his buddy, Fangs said.  
  
"I don't like self-gratification, it ain't nothing compared to a tight, warm body" Reno complained.  
  
"Don't look at me. Small town pussy ain't so bad, you just have to thin the herd a little and strike when the opportunity knocks. I used to date a small-town girl" Fangs offered.  
  
"Thin the herd how? Their fathers look at me like I'm about to rape them and I ain't no gang banger" Reno said.  
  
"Pussy will happen, my friend. Trust me" Fangs said.  
  
Meanwhile  
  
"You expect me to invite those.....reptiles to my party" Tifa said while she had breakfast with her father. Tifa was a beautiful, compassionate fifteen-year-old, who was popular as she was kind. Her father was an important government figure who travelled a lot.  
  
Seamus looked at his daughter, she looked so much like her mother in her grey and garnet school uniform. "They don't really know anyone in town. They might as well be in prison...." The compassionate man said.  
  
"And they should be" Tifa snapped, thinking of one of them in particular. There was something about those eyes and smirk that disturbed her.......  
  
"They don't have parents and have no one to guide them. You should set an example and show the other kids to befriend them. Most aren't bad kids, they just don't have a chance for a normal life" Seamus explained.  
  
"They are a bunch of freaks that wear chains and have tattoos" she said, focusing on one of the ones she'd spotted. He had the brightest red hair she'd ever seen and a face like a dangerous angel. She's since learned that his name was Reno. She had found herself oddly....attracted to him and that had disturbed her. She wasn't into bad boys, she liked her boys clean cut, like her longtime boyfriend, Cloud. But there was something about Reno........  
  
"Just ask them if they want to come, I won't even be home that night and you guys can have an orgy" he said with a chuckle.  
  
"Daddy!" Tifa said with a blush.  
  
"I trust you. Do this for me?" he pleaded with her.  
  
"Okay, I'll ask them at recess" she promised him.  
  
She took a deep breath as they walked down the hall with the long-haired redhead in front as he wore his customary smirk and the male school uniform, but the collar of his shirt was undone and so were some of the buttons of the white shirt he wore beneath. She frowned as this was in violation of their dress code.  
  
"Hi" Tifa said.  
  
"Yo" Reno said as he opened his locker and she blushed at the lewd pictures of women inside of it.  
  
"Reno and...friends, I was wondering if you wanted to come to my party on Friday?" she brightly suggested to the sensuous but arrogant boy.  
  
"What's the catch?" He asked her.  
  
"No catch, I'm serving punch and there will be plenty of snacks" she ventured, unnerved by those almond shaped, cold blue eyes. They were focused on her like a laser beam and he didn't appear to blink.  
  
"So, it ain't a pig party or nothin'?" He asked her, suspicious at her overture of kindness.  
  
"No, I thought you might want to meet new people" she said, burning under the scrutiny of he and his friends as they appeared to strip her naked with their eyes.  
  
"We don't got no swanky clothes to wear" he said glaring in challenge at her.  
  
"What you normally wear is fine" she assured him.  
  
"Okay, we'll be there" Reno said without consulting the others.  
  
"Great" she said in what she hoped was an enthusiastic voice as she clutched her binders before her chest to fend off their stares and left, feeling the weight of ten pairs of eyes on her buttocks.  
  
"She's hot" Fangs said with a leer.  
  
"She's so virginal she might as well have it tattooed on her forehead. I bet she ain't never put out to that little blonde boy toy she's always with. Gals like that are more trouble than their worth" Reno said dismissively. "I don't like girls, I like real women" he said as he fondly touched the locked chain around his neck that he never took off. She'd lock it onto his neck the night they'd taken him away to prison and he'd promised he wouldn't take it off until she removed it from him when he was home.  
  
Tifa had spent the entire day decorating her rumpus room and making trays of food and punch. She was sad that Cloud was going to be gone for a couple months as his father was on assignment as an ambassador. However, she knew he loved her and respected her....perhaps a little too much. He knew she wanted to wait for marriage, but sometimes she wished he would get a little more forceful with his kisses. Then she was ashamed for her thoughts, he loved her and was willing to wait, that was a good thing. He'd even bought her a promise ring she never took off.  
  
Her doorbell rang and she turned off unpleasant thoughts and went to greet her first guests with a smile of greeting.  
  
The party was in full swing when the Midgar crowd arrived, it was Reno in tow as ever, wearing a pair of tight black jeans that did wonders to his long legs and a white undershirt lay beneath his black leather jacket. The chain and lock he normally wore hung over the impressive definition that lay beneath his collar bone. Although the rumpus room was packed to the gills, he lounged upon a suddenly vacant seat, like he was a reigning monarch and smirked at his admirers.  
  
"What are they doing here?" Aerith whispered to Tifa.  
  
"My father insisted I invite them" she explained to her.  
  
"They are just so weird and sexy" the other brunette said.  
  
"Hey would you guys like to have some punch? I also have soft drinks in the fridge..." Tifa greeted them and realized her short skirt and her loose, belly revealing crop top were the wrong things to wear when those laser eyes honed in on her dimensions.  
  
"Don't ya got nothin' stronger?" Reno asked her.  
  
"I'm sorry, are the rest of you incapable of talking?" She inquired of the other nine males. They remained mute.  
  
"Yo Princess, I'm talking to you" Reno repeated himself.  
  
"I'm not a princess" she insisted.  
  
"Big house and private school education. Yup, if the glass slipper fits...." He drawled.  
  
"I'd stab you in the neck with the heel" she said and they narrowed their eyes at each other. "Princes can come in the shape of frogs, on that note and you're little more than a dung beetle....and you know what they eat" Tifa said.  
  
"If I eat shit then you eat..." Reno snapped at her.  
  
"Reno, Tifa. Come on, It's time to play spin the bottle to seven minutes in heaven.....or longer if you test me" Aerith threatened: the student body president, the physics club president, the head cheerleader, the president of the debaters club etc. Etc., the woman was an overachiever to the extreme. And no one wanted to piss her off with her temper.  
  
"What the fuck's that?" Reno demanded.  
  
"Language. Here's what happens" Aerith said and whispered it into his ear.  
  
"I'm sorry, you bunch of sexually repressed hayseeds play a game where you might cop a feel? That's so sad. I call that a really bad Monday of not scoring and even when the crowd is thin anywhere, there's always someone" he said looking at the rest of them with pity.  
  
Aerith composed her face as her temper flared and she calmly said "let's all sit down and spin the bottle" she suggested.  
  
Reno rolled his eyes as all the townies sat in a circle and Tifa smiled encouragingly at him and he sighed and joined the circle opposite her and crossed his long legs and his men joined him with a nod of his regal head.  
  
Aerith bent forward and spun the bottle and everyone watched as the clear glass wine bottle spun in a lazy circle and came to rest on Tifa and Reno.  
  
"Okay, Reno and Tifa, into the closet with you" Aerith said.  
  
"Do I got to?" Reno scowled.  
  
"I don't want to either" Tifa said.  
  
"The bottle has spoken; in you go" Aerith insisted.  
  
Tifa glared at her and went in and Reno followed her. It was a large walk in closet, intended for storage, so they had plenty of room. "You have half an hour" Aerith said to them before firmly shutting the door.  
  
"It's supposed to be seven minutes" Tifa objected and then they heard what sounded suspiciously like a chair being wedged under the doorknob and the music was turned up.  
  
"Open this door" Tifa cried.  
  
"Just relax, Princess, I ain't gonna bite ya or nothin'" Reno said as he sat down on the floor to wait out his sentence. "Ya claustrophobic or somethin'?" He asked her.  
  
"No" she said.  
  
"Then sit down and let them play their stupid game. So what we gotta do?" He asked her.  
  
"Well sometimes people kiss or....do other stuff. Sometimes people just talk. Whatever goes on between the people's strictly confidential" Tifa said. "I'm not scared of enclosed places, I hate dark" she nervously admitted and Reno's electric lighter flared to life and he put it on the ground so the glow dimly lit their enclosed space.  
  
"There you go, now it ain't dark anymore. Now what do ya want to talk about?" He asked her, knowing anything else was off limits.  
  
"What are your parents like?" She asked him.  
  
"Don't know, I was abandoned as a baby" he bluntly answered her with a shrug.  
  
"But that's so sad" she said.  
  
"I guess I was a miserable cuss as a baby and I ain't changed much" he added.  
  
"Okay, where do you intend to go to college?" She asked him.  
  
"You think any colleges want me?" He said with a bitter snort. "Only rich kids go to college; my sort go to jail or into the ground."  
  
"Okay do you have any hobbies?" She asked him.  
  
"I can pick any lock and make a great cat burglar with my build, I only got caught the once. That's how I ended up in this sorry assed one-horse town....that can't even seem to afford a town bicycle" he said in bitter tone of voice.  
  
"Do you have any hobbies that don't involve breaking the law?" She said in frustration.  
  
He turned to look at her, his hair glittered in the dim light and the cold blue of his eyes almost looked lit from within.  
  
"I give the best oral pleasure to ladies on the planet. I have a tongue that should be put on exhibit. I'm very generous with my lovers and could go down a girl for hours. I bring them to screaming orgasm each and every time. Would ya like me to take your panties off and eat every inch of your sweet pussy?" he taunted her. Knowing a girl like her would never agree to that. She probably thought he was a piece of shit as she'd implied he was.  
  
"What?" She said, positive she must have been hearing him wrong.  
  
"Do you want me to eat ya? Of course, a girl like y'all wouldn't want that for me. You seem to already have that short blonde as your Prince, Princess. You probably already have your future house picked out in this dump and will lose your virginity to him on your wedding night and make him suffer blue balls until he does. You'll both have fancy, high ticket careers and one point, two children. Yet if we did, I wouldn't tell anyone and you would still remain a virgin" he said with a smirk, enjoying shocking the uptight young bitch.  
  
"What makes you think I'm a virgin?" she boldly shot back.  
  
"Please, it might as well be tattooed on your forehead" Reno said with a dismissive shake of his head.  
  
"Do it" she insisted before she could stop herself.  
  
"If you want to play with fire..." Reno said and she gulped and flinched when cool, long fingers ran up her thighs and hooked into the bands of her panties and she shivered as he started to tug them down her thighs. "Last chance to back out, little girl" he warned her as he put her innocent white panties aside turned those laser beam eyes on her again and they gleamed wickedly at her. She shivered as she felt drawn to the danger she saw in them.  
  
"Use that tongue of yours for something other than mutilating grammar" she hissed back and felt a sense of panic as he seized her shoulder and made her lie prone. All she could see in the dim light was his blazing hair as it framed his dangerously pretty face.  
  
"Remember, you asked for this" he said with a smirk as her skirt was pushed up to her waist and his face was lowered so it was between her thighs. She let out a breathy gasp as he idly ran a finger over her slit, playing with her as he watched her writhe beneath him. She gasped again as he suddenly thrust a finger inside her, rubbing up against her g-spot and then withdrew it just as sharply and she cried out at the brief burst of raw pleasure. "I need to get off too though, but that can be a hand job. Do you agree?" He said and she dumbly nodded her assent.  
  
Then he was through toying with her, and he went down on her, thrusting his tongue inside of her to paint his initials on her untouched womanhood with his tongue. Her breath rattled in her throat at the unspeakable sensations.  
  
Her juices coated his mouth and he groaned at her taste, missing the sweet tang of a woman in arousal. He closed his mouth around her clit and moved his tongue in slow, lazy circles. Tifa was almost keening and allowed him to spread her now unresisting legs until they lay on either side of his conquering tongue.  
  
He kept his pace slow, making sure he was barely touching her and she writhed against him, pumping her hips into his wicked oral caresses. She was now soaked and he gently put first one and then a second finger inside of her, not daring another in her virginal state and was soon stroking her g-spot in time to each lick and nibble of his tongue and lips.  
  
The young woman's heated moans were music to his ears as he caressed her from within and without. He pussy clenched on his fingers, indicating that her ending was near as the carnal orchestra of her gasps and moans played for his ears alone, drowned out by the god awful top 40's music the teenagers were listening to in the common room.  
  
Satisfied, with his handiwork, he leaned in further and rolled his tongue over her with just the right amount of pressure. His free hand ran up her ribcage to take a hold of one of her large, surprisingly bare breasts and toyed with the erect nipple there. She barely even seemed to notice the added stimulation. Her breast was huge and the heavy, silky flesh could barely be contained by his large spidery hands.  
  
He deepened his intimate kiss, and within seconds, her hips shot off the floor and his hand moved to her mouth to stifle the scream he'd promised her and she went limp.  
  
He placed a final kiss to her pouting lips and leaned up "are you okay..." He went to ask her when her lips covered his in a frantic kiss and he kissed her back just as urgently, he went to undo his pants, to free his heavy erection to give the amorous girl the relief they both needed. It would only hurt her for a second and then....he stopped. Reno knew he could have persuaded her to do anything in her thrall, to surrender her virginity to him, to take his member between those perfect, pouty lips. However, he was a man of honour and had promised her she would remain a virgin. Instead, he leaned back and took his lips from hers and drew her skirt down. "There, ya got off and are still a virgin" he said, getting himself back under control.  
  
Tifa was stunned and still panting as Reno handed her her panties and she pulled them up her legs, unable to look at him.  
  
"Ya should wear a bra if you don't want your tits keeping your knees warm when you're forty" he suggested and she blushed.  
  
"Why did I agree to let you....?" She questioned out loud in confusion.  
  
"Hey it don't gotta happen again and I ain't tellin' no one" he promised her in a surprisingly noble way.  
  
What's wrong with me that.....?" She sobbed. "What are people going think?"  
  
"Hey guys. Why are you so red Tifa?" Aerith asked her when she opened the door.  
  
"Slap me and run to your girlfriend and bitch to her that I tried doing shit to ya" Reno whispered to her.  
  
"But why?" She whispered back to him.  
  
"Slap me as hard as you can" he insisted and she did and hysterically complained to the room how he'd tried to take advantage of her.  
  
"Come on guys, Iet's leave this lame party. As if I want some uptight cunt!" he sneered at her and left and Tifa wondered why he'd just helped preserve her reputation.  
  
She thought about what had occurred for days and again wondered why she'd let him touch her where no one ever had. She and Cloud had only ever groped each other a little over their clothes. Neither daring to suggest more.  
  
Did she need someone to all but take her decision from away her to allow her to explore her sexuality? Reno was a stranger, but she'd allowed him to bare her sex and go down on her and finger her. It was so perverse, yet it had been so hot! She was getting wet just thinking about those long slim digits stroking something inside her and that made her a hot mess. That expert tongue eliciting sensations in her that no one ever had. Finally, she sent him a message asking him to meet her in the library microfiche room that was never used.  
  
He came alone, walking in as if he owned the place and slouched against a wall. "Why?" She all but demanded of him.  
  
"Why what?" He innocently asked her and moved towards her with the ease of a jungle cat stalking his prey, purposefully invading her personal space. He had to admit she looked good in her childish uniform. It clung to her in all the right places.  
  
"Why did you do that to me?" She asked him as her back hit the wall as she stepped back.  
  
"I was just messing with ya. I didn't know ya were gonna agree. But ya did so I thought, why not?" he explained with a shrug.  
  
"I should have stopped you" she said in a shaky voice. Him standing so close to her unnerved her and made her feel funny. Her chest heaved with each hitched breath, drawing the teenaged male's attention to it and this made him wonder what it would look like uncovered. This planted a thought in his head.  
  
"And I would have but ya didn't stop me. I think ya needed that and ya need more of that loving from this Reno" he said with a smirk.  
  
"It's not true. I don't" she weakly protested.  
  
"Take your sweater off" he commanded her.  
  
"Why?" She asked him as she shrank away from him.  
  
"I wanna see if your titties are hard from being alone with me" he said with a smirk to her  
  
"They're not" she insisted, but pulled her wine coloured sweater vest over her head as her body silently obeyed him and before she knew what she was doing, she stood before him in just her white blouse and tie, however the stiff cups of her white utilitarian bra allowed nothing to show.  
  
He sat down "I think I need to examine them closer. Sit on my lap" he commanded her and as if in a trance, she did as he commanded her. Her aroused buds and groin throbbed as she sat upon his firm thighs.  
  
He removed her tie and started to undo her blouse.  
  
"What are you....?" She cried as she went to stop him and he angrily brushed her tiny, protesting her hands impatiently aside and admonished her for her interference. This did nothing to halt his progress of exposing her. Her blouse was soon completely unbuttoned and for good measure, he yanked her sleeves down her arms to her elbows, so that the material pooled at her waist. Leaving her torso bare, save for her bra.  
  
She gasped as he took a switchblade knife from his pocket and the blade sprang to attention with the touch of a button. It gleamed wickedly and seemed to be razor sharp and she gasped at this and froze.  
  
"I would keep still so I don’t cut you. I want to see if they're hard with my own eyes" he said as she shivered and protested what he intended to do but was too afraid to stop him as he touched the sharp blade to her exposed skin.  
  
She moaned in distress as he easily parted each strap at her shoulders with a single cut, so her bra sagged on her body. But he wasn't done as he slid the cold point of the blade up the front of her bra and with a hard slash forward, it parted and her naked globes sprung free. She cried out in distress as they dangled from her in so public a place. She was naked...and before man! She blushed at how he studied her.  
  
He caught her ruined bra, whisked it off of her and cruelly dumped it into the nearby garbage and tucked his switch blade away and whistled at sight of her creamy, impressive chest. "Lovely" he said as he admired the entirety of her firm bosom. They were large and pale, almost pearly in colour and well rounded and topped with sweet pink nipples. His knuckle grazed against one of their delicious contours and then he slowly circled a finger lazily around one of her delicate pink areolas. While he did this, his arms pinned her own to her sides so she couldn't cover herself. They were really large for her age and magnificent to behold. Her nipples were hard indeed and looked like they would be soft to the touch and Reno bent his head to take one in his mouth and nursed on her like a hungry babe at a teat.  
  
"Please release me, I can't be naked in school. If anyone finds us" she begged and gasped as he suckled the one nearest to him, eliciting a cry from her.  
  
"I like seeing you like this" He said as he blew on her damp bud as she shivered and she seemed to be in a trance as he unpinned her and began suckling and toying with her nipples until she was moaning and writhing on his lap.  
  
She was acutely aware of being half naked in front of the near stranger and a part of her longed to cover her shame but it felt so good as he suckled and toyed with her heavy roundness, exciting her already stimulated nipples to diamond hardness with each soft pinch, twist, lick and nibble and even soft, compelling bites. She put her hand on the back of his ponytail, not sure if she was trying to draw him away or hold him in place to continue his sweet torture as he ravished her virgin body and drew her to a fevered pitch.  
  
Reno realized Tifa had ceased fighting him in any regard as he played with her abundance to his heart's content. "What happened was just your body responding to stimulation. Ya don't want me, ya could hate my guts and ya would still get off. I think your body needs this as your prince ain't puttin' out and you're obviously a passionate woman. I can do this for ya and keep you a virgin at the same time, we can do this whenever ya want and no one has to know nuttin'. I can teach ya how to get me off in other ways. Now is this what ya want?" He asked her as he continued to stroke her firm, nude breasts until she was panting with need. "If ya agree, beg me to finger ya and get ya off" he commanded her.  
  
"Finger me, get me off. But please, I want to remain a virgin on my wedding night" she all but sobbed as she begged him. He nodded and would allow her that...for now.  
  
"And you shall be.....but I don't mind if I do" he said slipping his fingers up the side of her drenched panties and into her drooling pussy and they furiously kissed as her continued to stimulate her super sensitive nipples as his frigged her hot depths until she came with a muffled cry.  
  
She didn't resist as he took her hand, released his heavy tool and wrapped her fingers around it. "I never got off the last time" he reminded her as she looked in shock at her first dick as her own slim digits were wrapped around it. It felt like steel encased in silk and he showed her how to jerk him until he came onto the floor with a cry and she stared in a trance at the geyser of white that flew from his well pent up dick.  
  
She got redressed and hoped no one noticed her braless state, while he cleaned up the mess he'd made.  
  
"Now what?" She asked him.  
  
"You call my dorm and say to whoever answers that you want to study with me and where to meet you" he said.  
  
"What if I don't?" She challenged him.  
  
"You will, Princess. You will" he said with a smirk and she blushed as he went to leave and stuck his tongue playfully out at her as he departed. She blanched at this.  
  
Reno wondered what the fuck was wrong with him that he'd all but ravished a virgin girl. He wasn't a rapist and had never needed to force a woman. They offered and they fucked, end of story. But something about the uppity girl made him long to bring her down a peg or two. How she'd summon to him to her side like he was a servant had pissed him off.  
  
How she'd stood there in her prim little uniform of: wine coloured sweater vest and knee socks, a short sleeved white blouse, with her grey school tie and matching short skirt and demanded answers from him like she was a reigning queen. This made him long to strip her and humiliate her, to have her exposed tits dangling unfettered to his gaze, to stimulate her and turn her wanton and use her own hormones against her. But why? Of course, she would react like that, she was a hormonal fifteen-year-old girl who had probably never even been felt up.  
  
He'd been stupid to use his knife on her; what if she reported him as having one on school property? Graduating this school meant early release, so he could go back to his woman. He was embarrassingly good at school, having a genius level IQ.  
  
So why risk that to have a little sexual pleasure with a local girl? She wasn't anything to him. She would probably marry her small-town sweetheart and raise another generation of boring townies.  
  
Tifa wasn't anything to him but somehow, he wanted to continue with her, he wanted to continue to service her so she would realize that someone she thought beneath her was the one giving her what her body really needed. It seemed like a good fuck you to the town to tarnish the crown of one of their beloved princesses. Tifa was a popular girl after all........  
  
He smiled at the idea of him leaving a bastard child in her after he was long gone from this shitty town. Whatever were bastards good at but making other unwanted bastards? Let her try to explain that to her precious boyfriend.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introducing Cloud and Sephiroth. Thanking Kalta79 for the idea of Aerith as a villain

The abandoned house they met at for their trysts was filled with the sounds of their heavy moans. The blanket beneath them was rumpled to the extreme from their writhing on it. He pushed her cheerleader skirt up ever further as he gripped one of her firm bottom cheeks in his hand, her spanky pants and panties had long since been removed and her uniform top had been shoved up.  
  
He sat on the blanket topless, except for his chain and had his own jeans and underwear lowered to his thighs.  
  
He gasped each time she rubbed her wet slit against his heavy organ as she sat on top of him. She would hiss each time the velvety tip of his bulbous head ground on her clitoris, spiking her pleasure.  
  
They heaved together in a carnal way as they played with fire, to wet hump was dangerously close to going all the way. She writhed her hips on him, deepening their pleasure, she was gloriously wet as her juices coated him. The feeling was maddening to the long celibate man. He hadn't had anything close to what they had since before he went to prison. He didn't like men and would never think of asking Tifa to give him her anal cherry to give him some relief, he didn't want to stick his dick where someone shat from. So, all he really got from her was hand jobs and blow jobs that he'd instructed her on, at her insistence.  
  
Her labia seemed to flower around him and he broke off their kiss to plant a trail of kisses along her sensitive neck and downwards to suckle one of her erect nipples and watched her as he lunged against her.  
  
Her beautiful face was flushed with arousal and her bare arms were wrapped around his neck and eyes clenched shut at the stimuli he was giving her. Their bodies were wrapped so tightly around each others as he ground his hardness against her softness.  
  
They changed positions without disengaging and suddenly, he was on top of her so he could control their movements. He frantically rubbed himself against her as he kissed her everywhere he could reach. He then realized the head of his dick was buried inside her, one thrust of his hips and he.....  
  
"Yes, fuck the uptight bitch. Take that hymen she so prizes, tear it from her" Scarlet taunted him somewhere inside his brain, her eyes wickedly gleaming with excitement as they always did when she watched him with another girl, as she liked to do.  
  
Wait Scarlet.....Reno pulled out of Tifa as if her soft channel burned him."Get dressed" he ordered her as he pulled his own jeans over his damp erection.  
  
"Did I do something wrong?" Tifa asked him, touching his back and he flinched at this.  
  
"No, I promised you I wouldn't....he said, trying to get his thoughts under control. He didn't know what was going on with him. Scarlet wasn't answering his phone calls or texts from the burner phone he wasn't technically supposed to have. It had been three weeks; the longest he'd been out of contact with her and he was suffering from missing her. They weren't monogamous, but she'd promised she wouldn't take another man to their bed until he was home. He was fraught with worry. Had something happened to her?  
  
"Are you alright?" Tifa asked him, he was hard to read most of the time, but something seemed off about him now.  
  
"I'm fine, don't worry 'about me or nuttin'" he drawled and refused to look at her. He remembered his idle thoughts about leaving her with a bastard child and felt like a heel and realized he couldn't do it. How many times had she trustingly let him almost enter her, only for him to pull back. She had been right, she wasn't a spoiled Princess, she was a nice girl. Perhaps the first one he'd ever met. He was used to being treated as a conquest by everyone but Scarlet and even then.......  
  
Tifa couldn't claim him even as a friend without arousing suspicion, but she was always so kind to him. She seemed genuinely interested in him as a person and not just what lay between his legs. Scarlet didn't seem that interested in his brain, come to think of it.....  
  
Tifa always brought along snacks and drinks because she knew sex made him hungry and thirsty. He never had a girl lovingly prepare homemade snacks for him in plastic containers. Hell, Scarlet wasn't much of a cook!  
  
Where was she? His mind pictured her with every man they'd ever encountered as they laughed at Reno while they writhed on his bed.  
  
"Reno, do you want to talk?" Tifa said, leaned over and softly stroked his cheekbone, concerned for him as he clutched his chain in a death grip.  
  
"As I said, it's nuttin'. I'm just thinking about my woman" he said forcing himself to smirk.  
  
"Why do you always wear this thing? It can't be very comfortable...." She said, venturing to touch it.  
  
He jerked clear of her touch.  
  
"My woman locked it on me" he snapped at her.  
  
"She collared you like a dog?" Tifa asked him.  
  
"No, it's just symbolic. It's to remind me of how we belong together, she's going to take it off when I get home" he explained.  
  
"So, it's kind of like an engagement ring?" Tifa asked him.  
  
"It ain't like that. She's mine and I'm hers" he bragged to her.  
  
He remembered the last time he'd seen her:  
  
He'd gasped as she jerked him off under the table of the prison visiting room. She'd worn her tight fitting red dress that he liked so much. Her face was made up with dark eye makeup and her lips, their customary red as she smirked at him. "I miss you, lover" she whispered to him, yet she hardly ever visited him.  
  
"Scarlet, I think I found a way out of here. But I means I won't see ya for a while. No one's allowed to visit. There's a school in Nibelheim where they offer an early release if a prisoner spends a year there and graduates their high school. It's one of those stupid reformation programs. I took the placement test and more then qualify. Don't ya see, in a year's time we can be together, not five years" Reno said encouragingly to her.  
  
"That sounds so dull" she sneered.  
  
"I'll get a phone smuggled to me, I can call ya every night" he promised her.  
  
"Do what you want" she said dismissively and he wondered why she was being so cold. Didn't she want him home?  
  
He sat there in his blue prison uniform and examined the beautiful woman who held his heart, who'd given him he only love he'd ever known. "Wait for me, I'm doing this for us. I just gotta follow some stupid rules and then I'm home to ya" he told her.  
  
"What's she like?" Tifa asked him, wondering at the flash of hurt in his eyes, he normally was so guarded in his expressions and body language. Reno's memory faded and he turned his attention to Tifa's unpainted face, she had a natural beauty that required no enhancement. She was so different from....  
  
"She ain't girl like you. She's a woman. She's twenty-six" he bragged and Tifa was scandalized at the age difference.  
  
"That sounds practically illegal" she cautiously said.  
  
"We're in love" he defensively insisted, wondering why he was justifying his relationship to an outsider, why Tifa's opinion meant a fart in the wind to him. "It's been me and she since I met her when I was fourteen" he snarled at her.  
  
"Fourteen? That's statutory rape" Tifa said in shock. "How would you like the idea of my being with a twenty-six-year-old guy?" She asked him.  
  
He turned his head and stared forward at the idea. Wondering why the idea of her being with someone else bothered him. He knew he was going to get dropped like a hot potato when her man got home. She wouldn't need him in any way and this disturbed him more then he would admit. "Ya can't judge what ya don't know. Scarlet took me off the streets. I'd run away from the group home, there was this group of guys that wanted me ta....do stuff to them" he admitted and Tifa automatically stroked his back to offer sympathy at this memory and he welcomed her touch this time, it relaxed the tension in him a bit "I was hungry and living on the streets.......here's how we met......."  
  
"Hi, I’m Scarlet" the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen introduced herself as he begged for spare change.  
  
"I'm Reno" he all but stammered, he was still a virgin and shy around women.  
  
"Reno, you look cold and hungry. Would you like to come home with me? You can shower and clean your clothes, I can give you a hot meal and a bed to sleep in" she suggested to him. He eagerly nodded while he felt nervous at the same time. His street senses kicked in on the high alert that she was hot danger, but what she'd suggested sounded like heaven to the starving boy.  
  
Her place was spacious and the most elegant apartment he'd ever seen. He could feel her eyes on him as he ate and then blushed when she suggested he take a shower. He was shocked when she got into it with him completely naked and took his first kiss. "You're the most delicious thing I've ever seen. I need to have you" she purred.  
  
He nervously stood at the end of the bed wrapped in a thick towel and she took it from him and took him to bed and started to mould him into the man he was on his way to becoming.....  
  
"You must have been so scared" Tifa interrupted him, to her minds eyes, Scarlet seemed like a reprehensible person and little more than a child molester.  
  
"I wasn't a chick needing a ring and a promise and a rose strewn bed" he snapped at her with a glare.  
  
"No but if she cared about you, she should have waited until you felt safe and offered her your love. I would never do that to anyone. If I were in her shoes, I would have kept you safe and let you come to love me" she said. He turned to look at her, a question in his eyes. He could picture that if Tifa had been Scarlet, him being treated as precious to her and then gently seduced when he whispered he loved her and wanted her. It seemed so....he shook his head to clear it, he'd obviously been around Tifa too much. Tifa was Tifa and Scarlet was Scarlet; they were as different as night and day. He was relieved Tifa would never experience life in the slums with how virtuous she was. She wouldn't last the night. "A person's first time should be special and not forced from them, you didn't deserve that" Tifa said with sympathy in her voice.  
  
"Things are different where I'm from. Hell, I'm surprised I didn't trade it for a cheeseburger" he snapped at her.  
  
"Things were actually that bad for you?" She asked him. He normally shut down when she pressed him too much about his life, but apparently, he felt like sharing that day. He refused to look at her, he didn't want the compassionate girl's pity  
  
"Then I got the love of a woman. She claimed me and gave me a home, introduced me to her brother, our gang leader and they taught me how to be a cat burglar. It don't matter how we met" he said. "She's mine and I'm hers," He said with a smirk. "And I got a sparkly ring to prove it to her when I get home. I didn't steal it neither, I busted my hump working on the docks for seven months to afford it. Though I think you have larger diamonds just from being a rich bitch" he snapped at her. "We can marry when I'm seventeen and then it will be she and me forever" he declared and it was Tifa's turn to look away, feeling disturbed at the idea of another woman touching him.  
  
"Then why aren't you monogamous?" She asked him and he refused to answer that and remained silent. How many times had he asked Scarlet the same question? He didn't understand why she needed other men, why she wanted to watch him with other girls and then claim him from them.  
  
"I was almost balls deep in your cunt and you're worried about my relationship? I would worry about your own! I've done shit with ya your own boyfriend probably ain't dreamed of. There ain't no place on your body my hands ain't been. Why is that, Princess?" He said and was suddenly pinning her down. "Are you one of those sick bitches that gets off on being forced" he taunted her. He was mad at the world, he was bitter over her making him examine his own relationship and how what she said struck a chord deep in him. "Do you need me to make you a woman like this? Shall I rip them panties off you right here and right now and thrust inside of you and take your precious hymen?" he taunted her as he rubbed his heavy erection against the thin defense of her spanky pants and brief underwear beneath. Her mouth was dry and she could feel her pussy dampening in answer to what he was saying, a part of her wanted it to happen she realized. He looked dangerously sexy and his eyes blazed with anger and something else that made her heart go out to him.  
  
"But you wouldn't, that's not you. You would never force someone like this. I trust you and care about you" she said to him and he all but leaped from her.  
  
"Ya don't fucking know me or what I'm capable of" he raged at her.  
  
"I know you're wildly intelligent but pretend like you're a brainless dildo. I know you’re hurting and don't know how to ask for help and trust few people. You can trust me because I care about you. I don't know why we do what we do together but it made me get to know you and realize that you're far kinder and nobler that you believe. I hope Scarlet realizes how lucky she is" Tifa said with confidence as she stood up, longing to wrap her arms around him, to offer him comfort from his inner turmoil, but dared not in his unpredictable mood.  
  
"You're a virgin. What the hell do you know? What the hell do you know about me?" He demanded of her.  
  
"I know something's really bothering you and want to help in anyway I can. I'm here for you whenever you need me. I also have a suggestion: there's lots of scholarships they offer for underprivileged people, you'll meet the criteria once you graduate. They cover everything by one hundred percent. I could help you write the applications and entrance essays. Don't you see? What lays between your ears can give you a better life. You can leave the slums and keep Scarlet too" she said encouragingly as she started towards him, excited by the idea of what she's researched.  
  
He shrank back from her as if she was trying to hurt him. "What the fuck ya on about? I hate school now and ya think I want to add another four years on to my sentence for a stupid piece of paper that ain't worth wiping my ass with? We're done! I don't need no stupid little girl spouting fairytales at me and thinking I'm some kind of Prince in the rough. I ain't. I'm the piece of shit you thought I was when we met and I shall be flushed back to where I belong soon enough. I need my woman, not you. Go back to your happy little life and marry Cloud," Reno said, saying his name out loud for the first time.  
  
"Reno don't be like this, I just wanted to give you a choice" she said, going to grab his arm and he looked at her tiny hand touching him so trustingly and then down into her hurt looking beautiful garnet eyes and wondered why this disturbed him almost as much as Scarlet's silence. How could he explain to her that no one had ever spoken to him about future possibilities or encouraged him academically? How everyone just saw a pretty boy with a big dick that was a piece of trash and wanted him only physically, even Scarlet.  
  
"Stay away from me. You got your cheap thrills from a safe walk on the wild side and can still marry your man with a clear conscious that ya'll go to your marriage bed a virgin. I should have taken up with your friend when she offered herself to me, at least I would have gotten properly laid......  
  
Reno sat on the bleachers as Tifa was at cheerleading practice, she gave him a covert smile and he pretended not to notice. He figured that no one would care as he watched only her, he wasn't the only man watching the attractive, nubile bodies of their school's cheerleading squad. "She's attractive" Aerith said as she joined him.  
  
"Who?" He asked her.  
  
"The girl you can't keep your eyes off of. I know you've been having an affair with Tifa since her party" Aerith said.  
  
"I ain't gotta answer that. It ain't none of your business anyway" he snapped at her. He didn't much care of Aerith, there was something about her that reminded him of the more devious women he'd encountered in the slums......like his own woman.  
  
"She has a boyfriend and I don't. I could take you to bed and keep you satisfied. I do like bad boys" she said with a wicked smile and went to touch him.  
  
He caught her hand and looked coldly at her. Despite what people believed, he was very fussy about who he shared his body with. "Sorry, but this walk on the wild side ain't issuing no tickets. I choose my chicks and they don't choose me....and I choose not to choose you. I suggest you get yourself a dildo 'cause I ain't putting out for ya" he said with a smirk.  
  
"You just made a bad mistake" Aerith said and left and he wondered what she meant by this.  
  
"What friend?" Tifa demanded.  
  
"It doesn't matter.....I turned her down" Reno said, knowing they were close friends. "I gotta go" he said, with Scarlet not offering him any emotional support, he'd become unanchored and enjoyed Tifa's gentle caresses and unconditional benevolence a little too much. Was he now an actual hormonal teenager experiencing a crush on a young girl after how mature he was for his tender years? Ridiculous, he told himself. Where was Scarlet? He needed her!  
  
"Reno...." Tifa cried after him as he shook off her hand and all but ran away from her, wondering why his eyes were burning and vision blurry......  
  
Cloud rode the length of his lover, encouraged by his heady moans as he lay on the bed with his silver hair sprawled all over it. His lovely green eyes were clenched at the sensation of Cloud's clutching bower as he rode him. Cloud's muscular bubble cheeks were cupped and squeezed with an almost bruising force as Sephiroth neared his orgasm as he lover's hot, muscular body moved on his own. His hips gave a firm shove back with each of Cloud's downward beats in perfect timing.  
  
Sephiroth leaned up and pinned the slighter man with his arms and hammered into him triple time with a neutral expression on his face as his green eyes glared into his boyfriend's blue eyes. Cloud keened as this spiked his pleasure and he came on his lover's taut stomach without a single touch at the same time Sephiroth's hot essences shot into him. Cloud sagged in Sephiroth's arms, winded as only Sephiroth could make him.  
  
"I love you" he gasped.  
  
"And I love you" was Sephiroth's silken reply as he smoothed back the compact man's formerly spiky hair and kissed his panting lips.  
  
Cloud wasn't on assignment with his father as he'd told Tifa, but staying in his lover's apartment a couple town's over in Rocket Town  
  
Sephiroth was the son of a scientist and a couple of years older than sixteen-year-old Cloud. He lived alone and ran a successful garage, despite his tender age, he didn't have to hide his sexuality because his family knew he was gay and liked Cloud.  
  
"I love you but you have to come out of the closet...or at least tell your girlfriend. You can't keep on lying to her like this" Sephiroth encouraged him.  
  
Cloud hung his head, he'd been with Tifa so long that he couldn't imagine life without her. He knew she was beautiful and he was a lucky man but had always felt there was something wrong with him how he would be more excited when watching men shower in the locker room then during a make out session with his longtime girlfriend. He loved her in his way, but it was Sephiroth who had taught him how to really love.  
  
They'd met quite by chance, Cloud had been staying at one of his guest houses close to Sephiroth's garage and he had got a flat tire.  
  
The mechanic of the garage he'd been towed to was the most beautiful man he'd ever seen. His coveralls failed to disguise a well-honed, muscular body and his silver thigh length hair was woven into a braid. Cloud felt disturbingly turned on by the idea of those large, calloused hands on his body as they capabily changed his tire.  
  
As if sensing his thoughts, Sephiroth invited him to his apartment above his garage for a drink and kissed him silly as soon as the door was closed and made love to him right away, giving Cloud's pent up body what it really needed.  
  
He was penetrated for the first time in his life as his new lover's length pounded into his needy body as he lay on his bed. Each demanding thrust struck something deep within him that had him keening until Cloud came without a single touch. A geyser of sperm erupted onto his firm belly and Sephiroth leaned over and lapped it up in the most erotic display Cloud had ever seen and licked his lips at Cloud's taste, before leaning over and taking his lips. Cloud could taste himself on those beautiful full lips and truly fell into love for the first time in his life.


	3. Aerith Revealed

"I'm sorry Tifa, it's not that I don't love you...but not the way I should. I'm gay. I've got a boyfriend." Cloud explained to the dumbstruck looking teenager.  
  
"But I thought you and I were...." She said and realized what Reno meant about her believing in fairy tales and it was like she matured on the spot. But she wasn't a Princess and Cloud wasn't a Prince in a Once Upon Time tale, she was just a girl and he was just a guy....a guy with a boyfriend. There was no happily ever for them, not for the two of them. His love ultimate love would be of the same sex as himself and she...would have to find another and looked away when she her thoughts turned to Reno. Who was gone, who had left her. Who was caught up in a fucked up fairy tale of his own, with a twisted Queen from the sound of it.  
  
"Please say something" Cloud begged her.  
  
She looked at him and felt her heart hurt but it wasn't breaking. Suddenly, she realized that she'd been clinging to Cloud as in ideal of who she should be with. Now she was just looking at a gorgeous man. Now she understood why he hadn't demanded more from her sexually. Yes, he'd been cheating on her, but; could she really throw stones when she had all but made love to Reno?  
  
"There was another....I didn't go all the way but I came close" she admitted to him.  
  
Cloud was beyond shocked but not jealous. "Are you both still together?" He asked her.  
  
"No, he has another" she said. "She's ten years older than him" she explained.  
  
"And he's.....?" Cloud asked her.  
  
"Sixteen" Tifa said.  
  
"That's....is that even legal?" Cloud speculated, feeling overwhelmed at the idea of a couple like that.  
  
"It is, I checked it online" Tifa said. "They can legally marry when he's seventeen" she said as tears spilled from her eyes. "He wants to" she sobbed.  
  
Cloud instinctively put his arms around her "then he's a damned fool for not realizing you're in love with him and choosing the pedo" he declared.  
  
"In love?" She asked him.  
  
"I know what you look like when you're in love. I'm not judging you for what you did, I wasn't any better. I'm sorry if this is blunt, but I'm happy. I would have done it: married you, fathered children on you. But my heart wouldn't have been in it. With Sephiroth; that's his name, it's like my body tingles when I'm with him to the point I almost forget to breathe. I don't mean to be cruel, I just love him so much" Cloud explained.  
  
"I'm happy for you" Tifa said, squeezing his hand as she let go of her childish plans for him.  
  
"Please don't tell anyone besides close friends, I'm not out of the closet yet" Cloud implored her.  
  
"I promise" she said as a motorcycle pulled up in front of her place and she was introduced to a very gracious Sephiroth and didn't know if she was happy that Cloud no longer hers or not. She realized that she was alone now and her life was no longer safely planned, with the boy next door being her eternal mate and eventual husband. The world was unpredictable as love and not every relationship was safe.... sometimes you had to fire walk over hot coals to reach your intended. Yes, she was happy for Cloud, but still wept for what would never be.  
  
Reno was fairing no better as he called everyone he could think of to inquire about Scarlet and they had all been vague and told him she was fine, but he would have to talk to her to understand what was going on with the young woman.  
  
He was like a zombie, barely sleeping in case he missed a text from her. He sleep walked throughout the day and wondered if he should just leave Nibelheim. But to do so meant he would return to prison and serve out his full remaining sentence. He missed his woman so badly and at the same time, worried how fickle his heart was being. He couldn't deny he had feelings for Tifa and felt himself critically examining Scarlet, how she frequently used him to satisfy her voyeuristic fetish. How she would all but order him to find a girl to seduce and would watch them from their second bedroom through a one-way mirror installed there. The look of betrayal on the girl's face when Scarlet came into their bedroom laughing after Reno's conquest of her had bothered him each and every time. Yet, he'd done it to keep her satisfied because he unconditionally loved her....even to the point he ignored each and every time she slept with another man.  
  
With Tifa, things had been so different, of course he knew she had a boyfriend and whatever they had was just a fling but she treated him so kindly and never demanded anything of him. Her touch was gentle and her interest in him as a person, genuine. He'd never felt so cherished in his life. She was a cuddlier, whereas, Scarlet had never been. How good it had felt just holding her, how he felt he could drown in her kisses that were......sweet, he had to admit. She wasn't jaded like him, she wasn’t cynical, she honestly believed everyone had a little bit of good in them. Her sunny nature had cheered him up during this lonely time in his life and it wasn't just him she'd taken on. She befriended the other nine slum dwellers under his charge, she'd treated them with respect and tried to help them in any way she could. Helping with school projects, offering tutoring to them. Obtaining new clothes for them when she found out they weren't given a clothing allowance. She'd won over the teenagers that were just a jaded as himself by simply being nice to them as was her nature.  
  
His men never questioned what he was doing with a virgin or made comments about their strange pact. They only dared venture that he was a lucky man after they got to know her. But it wasn’t like Tifa was his woman! He had a woman!  
  
A woman he worried about, a woman he told himself he wanted and needed every time he: touched Tifa's smooth body, kissed her plush, unpainted lips and felt her almost worshipful caresses on his own skin. Scarlet's kisses had been almost feral and had tasted vaguely of wax because her darkly painted lips and left red stains on his face. Tifa's more girlish kisses tasted only of her cherry lip gloss and had left no visible stains on him but on his treacherously wavering heart.  
  
He wasn't doing well physically in what he felt was his betrayal to Scarlet after she'd done to much for him. As well as barely sleeping, he'd lost his appetite and only his own fastidious nature dragged him into the shower each morning and vaguely tend to his bodily needs. He clung to his gang leather jacket like a talisman, carried Scarlet's engagement ring with him at all times and wore the chain she'd placed on him like it was the crown jewels.  
  
Aerith listened with feigned sympathy when Tifa explained to her in confidence why she and Cloud had actually broken up. Aerith seemed benign to all who knew her, a charmingly busy overachiever and the unofficial ruler of the school.  
  
Yet she wasn't what she seemed. She was really a selfish woman, who demanded all the glory for herself and was wildly jealous of Tifa for her popularity that she'd won with kindness alone. She envied how easily she gained friends and ruled the school along with her supposed best friend. She'd hated how she'd so easily hooked the most eligible boy in school. Everything seemed to come easily to Tifa: good grades, friends, lofty positions on school and now she'd caught the attentions of the rough and dangerous seeming boy Aerith would love to make a conquest of. Yet that punk had dared to turn her down! Her! No one turned down Aerith!  
  
Aerith wasn't above playing cruel pranks on people who pissed her off, but would always set the scene of their downfall so she couldn't be blamed.  
  
"You know what we need? A proper girl's night out. I can get us fake ID's and we can go to this delightful little dive bar in Rocket Town and flirt and have fun" she declared.  
  
'I don't know. I don't drink" Tifa said.  
  
"You could just drink soft drinks and we can dance the night away. It's pretty good crowd there normally and packed to the gills with handsome men" she encouraged her. "Well my father's away for a few weeks" Tifa vaguely said. She wished he wasn't away so often but was proud of the fact that he trusted her enough not to saddle her with a nanny at her age or send her to stay with her maiden Aunt, who was deeply religious and thought the innocent Tifa was bound for hell. They thought her a tad demented in her zealousness.  
  
"You can wear something of mine. Ever if you don't drink, you have to be seventeen to get in" Aerith said.  
  
"Okay, it could be fun" Tifa agreed and she didn't register that Aerith sunny smile actually looked a little sinister.  
  
Tife could only stare at herself in the mirror and blush as she looked at herself, she wore a strappy black stretch dress that lay like a spider web on her torso. The inner contours and undersides of her large bosom were exposed, as well as her flat, well-honed belly. The dress itself terminated a couple of inches under her butt. She looked nothing like her usual self. She normally favoured causal clothing when not wearing either her school or cheerleader's uniform. Her face had been painted in a way that made her blush to disguise her tender age. "I can't go out like this in public" she said, tugging awkwardly at the bottom of the dress and straps in an attempt to conceal more of her chest.  
  
"You look beautiful" Aerith declared, her own red dress was much more modest and her makeup sparingly applied.  
  
"But....." Tifa objected.  
  
"I understand that some of the residents of a certain house campus frequent this place" Aerith said.  
  
That was actually untrue. Reno was if anything, a model student. His upbringing had exposed him to the effects of heavy drug use or drinking on the human body and avoided the easy escapes from reality that other slum dwells became addicted to. He neither broke curfew in his need to graduate the program or got in trouble at school and encouraged the others to do the same. He kept his nose clean and got good grades.  
  
However, Tifa didn't know that side of him as he was too embarrassed to admit he wasn't the slacker he seemed to be, or a thug.  
  
Tifa imagined Reno seeing her dressed this way and having to admit she wasn't the goody goody he'd thought her to be. "Let's go" she bravely said and trustingly got into Aerith's car.  
  
Earlier that Day  
  
"I'll give you a hundred gil each if you do it. I want you to do this girl right on the pool table and make sure it's recorded and put on youtube" she explained to the rough, but handsome men as she held out a picture of Tifa.  
  
"You want us to rape her?" One asked her.  
  
"She'll be under the influence of this date rape drug and shall look like she's enjoying it. You just have to slip it into her drink and do her after I leave" Aerith explained.  
  
They exchanged glances "consider it done" they said with a nod of confirmation to each other.  
  
Tifa was happy she was attracting so much attention and danced with a lot of men, she forced her problems away and wondered why she felt rather dizzy and was talking too much. Aerith pleaded a headache and the two handsome men who had been buying her non-alcoholic drinks all night offered to drive her home. With her judgement impaired, she agreed and wondered why she was being lifted onto the pool table, the one man was a blue-eyed redhead named, Genesis and the other, a handsome brunette named Zack.  
  
The confused Tifa looked up and mistook Genesis for another redhead, as Aerith had anticipated the drug added girl would. "Reno?" She asked him in her confusion, happy he was there to keep her safe.  
  
"Call me whatever you want, babe" Genesis said as he stretched the straps of her dress out of the way and she moaned as he lowered his head and suckled her exposed nipples and her hands caught the back of his head to hold his head in place and wondered at his short hair. Meanwhile, Zack slipped her black panties down her thighs as their friend recorded the young girl's downfall. No one made any move to stop them as the rough men enjoyed the sight of a free live sex show as the girl writhed in front of their humid eyes at the double stimulation of her large boobs being suckled while fingers rhythmically twisted and pumped inside her. "Reno" she gasped out loud.  
  
Sephiroth and Cloud happened to be there that night as Sephiroth was a nut for the chicken wings they made there and it was within walking distance of his apartment. He and Cloud would sometimes play pool, even if Cloud was the most miserable shot on the planet. "Like this" he teased the blonde as he playfully bent him over the table to help him line up his shot. Sephiroth nibbled his ear briefly before he helped him finally sink a ball.  
  
Sephiroth was happy with his significant other. Cloud wasn't like other spoiled rich boys, who all but demanded Sephiroth give himself to them. He cared about the silver haired man and was just happy to be with him. Cloud had a sensitive, beautiful soul that seemed to shine from his very compelling body. That he'd taken a leave of absence from his studies to live with him in his utilitarian apartment, which wasn't half as spacious as the boy was used to and was even learning to be a mechanic to better understand Sephiroth's job. This endeared the sweet man to Sephiroth even further.  
  
Sephiroth glanced with distaste to where two man and a woman were giving a very public sex show. Sephiroth didn't care for such displays, not that he had anything against heterosexual sex but he didn't much care for any type of sex to be turned into a public event. He was largely ignoring them and paying attention to his boyfriend when something about the woman seemed familiar to him. He was just about to draw Cloud's attention to her when her head lolled and he was looking into the drunken/stoned looking face of Cloud's ex-girlfriend. "Tifa, that's Tifa" Sephiroth cried.  
  
"What?" Cloud said and turned his head and realized with horror that Sephiroth was right....and charged over. "Get off of her!" He insisted while the larger Sephiroth hovered menacingly behind his mate.  
  
"Get your own girl" Genesis growled as he leaned his head up from Tifa's now bare torso, having gotten sick of having to navigate her various straps and simply tore them out of the way and wrenched the bodice of her dress to her waist. He'd licked his lips at the sight of gravity defying large breasts and supple, smooth pale skin. She was a hot little bitch that her supposed friend had delivered up to them.  
  
"I think she's a virgin" Zack had whispered to him with hunger in his voice as he fingered the damp snatch of her prone girl to her carnal moans. He was hot and heavy in his pants and ready for release.  
  
"Not for much longer" Genesis said with a smirk back to him.  
  
"She's mine" Cloud insisted, placing his jean jacket over Tifa and helping her stand up.  
  
"Reno, where's Reno" she groggily asked him, needing him to be there. Where had he gone?  
  
"I think she's on something" Sephiroth said he examined how dilated her pupils were.  
  
"Hey we didn't hurt her, we'll go" Genesis and Zack said and Sephiroth caught them both.  
  
"No one leaves until we get to the bottom of this" he said in a cold voice that caused both men to shiver. All of them ended up in Sephiroth's apartment with Cloud holding Tifa. "We weren't gonna hurt her, we were just supposed to fuck her a little" Genesis explained.  
  
"We brought condoms, she would have been safe" Zack whined. "Some chick paid us one hundred gils each to fuck her" he explained.  
  
"She keeps on asking for someone called Reno" Cloud said, feeling puzzled who that was.  
  
"Who's that?" Sephiroth asked him.  
  
"I have no clue" Cloud said, he knew she'd been seeing someone, but had been told it was over.  
  
"Check her PHS for a contact in that name and call him" Sephiroth suggested.  
  
Cloud did that and called the man.  
  
Reno was falling asleep with his burner phone on his hand, too afraid to miss a text from Scarlet to sleep, but too exhausted not to. When his phone rang and he hurriedly answered it. He recognized Tifa's number. "Tifa?" He asked as he scrubbed the sleep from his eyes.  
  
"No it's Cloud, Tifa's with me....someone tried to rape her" he said, not able to sugar coat what had happened in his worry for his friend and ex-girlfriend.  
  
"Where are you?" He insisted. "I'm coming over" he snapped. Reno wasn't a cat burglar for nothing, he was nimble and agile and his lithe frame allowed him to get into tight spaces that other men couldn't hope to penetrate. He and the rest of the Midgar crew had learned a long time ago that security was almost laughable in their dorm. The security guards that were supposed to be watching them couldn't be bothered doing that. They played on their phones and had been lulled into a complacant false sense of security because their charges didn't cause any trouble as other bunches had in the past. These guys kept to themselves and stayed in their bedrooms, studying for the most part. They were almost boring in fact!  
  
However, each and every one of the of the low born and jaded boys knew where the security cameras were, which windows and doors had alarms and which didn't....and how the principal of the school kept another car he was storing there in a shed that could easily be borrowed and returned without anyone being the wiser. So, it was no problem for Reno to slip out the unalarmed laundry room window, hotwire the car and he was on his way.  
  
Cloud was shocked upon meeting Reno when Sephiroth answered his demanding knock.  
  
Tifa had been involved with a Midgar slum dweller! He didn't have to ask if he was one of the ones in the program, he could tell at a glance. However, it didn't go unnoticed how Reno had run to Tifa and taken her from Cloud, holding her and stroking her hair and murmuring to her and she seemed calmer in his presence as she clung to him. Their tender reunion scene was almost sweet in fact.....Was it possible Reno loved her too?  
  
"Tell me the story from the beginning" Reno demanded in a deadly calm voice without bothering him to introduce himself, his cold laser beam eyes alighting on the guilty looking men. "What chick?" He interrupting them, even cuddling their intended victim, they could tell he was trouble.  
  
"She had long brown hair, worn in a braid and large green eyes" Genesis described her.  
  
"Wait, is this her?" Cloud asked them, pulling up a picture of their student body president from their school's website.  
  
"That's her" Genesis confirmed and Cloud showed the picture to Reno.  
  
"Aerith" he said in a voice that made chills run up and down Cloud's spine. "I'm taking Tifa home" he said pulling her to her feet.  
  
"But I should....." Cloud protested.  
  
"She asked for me and I'll see she gets home to bed" Reno challenged both men, he looked scrawny compared to the two brawny men and he didn't give a fuck, he was willing to take them both on if they wouldn't let him leave with Tifa. He needed to see her safe and comfortable, he needed to and would not be denied in his exhaustion.  
  
Sephiroth was a good judge of character and could tell the tough looking man was being so demanding out of concern for Tifa, because he was shaken to the core something could have happened to her.  
  
"Let him take her home" Sephiroth said to his mate.  
  
"But..." Cloud protested. "Okay, ask her to call me later" he called after him as he left with his arm around Tifa as she clung to him.  
  
He drove them to her place and parked the borrowed car in a public parking lot down the street and let himself into her place with her key. Reno was furious at the ruined dress he found under Sephiroth's tent of a t-shirt. He ripped it from her along with the black lace panties Tifa would never wear. He never thought he would see the day he put a pink nightgown on a girl with pearlized buttons and a print of cats frolicking on it. He pulled a pair of girlish white panties up her firm thighs and adjusted them on her. Then he helped her wash her face free of her garish makeup. He tucked her into bed and pulled her close so that she had her head was pillowed on him and held her to wait for the drugs to leave her body. She would nod off upon occasion and so would he, then she would cry out upon occasion and say his name a lot and was finally drifted to sleep. She awoke feeling like shit early the next morning.  
  
"You awake?" Reno asked her.  
  
"Reno what happened? What are you doing here?" She asked him.  
  
"Someone roofied you and tried to get you raped. Cloud and Sephiroth were in the same place and stopped them and they called me" he said trying to scrub his face free of sleep.  
  
"But why did you come?" She asked him.  
  
"I guess I'm a sucker for a pretty face. Don't go to bars no more" he told her. "You're fine but you should call in sick for school. I'm dealing with the person who orchestrated this, I won't hurt them but they're certainly going to pay for what they did. I gotta go break back into the dorm and get changed for the day" he said.  
  
"Why would anyone do this?" Tifa said in a groggy voice as he tucked her in and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Glad she was safe and with him.  
  
"Some people are just jealous assholes" he explained as he shut off her light, he closed the door behind him and searched each part of the doorway in a professional way for the emergency key families like this always had. The plastic rock was easy to spot and he locked the door behind him to ensure Tifa was safe and returned the key to its hiding place. Wondering why her father would allow her to remain home alone for weeks on end. He had to have a talk with that man. Wait that meant meeting someone's parent....  
  
His hair blew behind him when he went to return the borrowed vehicle, looking like an angel of vengeance as he safely returned to his room and got into his school uniform. He was exhausted but had to make his meeting with a certain girl. He'd arranged to meet her in the drama room that had a faulty lock on it. All he'd had to do was offer himself to her and she took the bait.  
  
Aerith felt a sense of triumph that the aloof boy had succumbed to her charms but she fully intended to play hard to get and toy with him for a while. Let him beg a little.  
  
"Reno" she called.  
  
"I'm here" he said in a teasing voice from the stage.  
  
"Are you playing hide and seek with me?" She asked him.  
  
"So, come and find me" he called to her and she ducked behind the curtain.  
  
"There you are...." She said and then realized that his friends were there with him as they all glared in accusation to her.  
  
"What's this?" She asked him as she got goosebumps all over her body as if foreseeing what was unfolding before her.  
  
He smirked at her, "this is the day you pay retribution for your crimes" he instructed her and with a nod of his head, she was seized and brought before him.  
  
"Stop....let go. What do you mean? Release me. Your kind can't do a thing to me. Do you know who my father is?" She haughtily demanded with a proud toss to her head.  
  
"We all know chicks like you, like the rough stuff because they think Daddy's money will protect them from everything. Well it won't in this case. You fucked with my wo...friend" Reno corrected himself. "We all know Tifa and like her....and none of us likes a cunt like you. We make an example of those who fuck with people we like where we're from" he said with a dangerous smirk.  
  
"You can't touch me" she insisted, pulling arrogantly at the pinioning arms holding her in place.  
  
Reno ignored her "you have two choices: we can release you and you can quietly removed your own clothes or I can cut 'em off" he purred at her.  
  
She was stricken dumb for a couple seconds at this. "Take off my...I will not" she cried as she tried to lunge away from them but was unable to.  
  
"Option two it is" Reno said, taking out his straight razor, he preferred his switchblade normally but thought the menacing looking matt black weapon might scare her more.  
  
Aerith froze when he opened it and light shone off the deadly looking blade. Reno took a hold of her sweater vest and easily slit it from the neckline to the hem and then took care of each shoulder strap to rid her of it.  
  
Her white blouse parted easily as he ran the blade straight down her shirt, cutting the buttons off so they flew like popcorn from her until it fell open. He then went to work on the sleeves until the ruin garment fluttered from her.  
  
While Tifa wore practical briefs and plain white bras, whereas Aerith's underwear was much different. It was a creamy colour and make of almost transparent lace that revealed her nipples. She was by no means silent during any of this. She was protesting he had no right to bare her, to see her naked. That he would go back to jail like the miserable piece of shit he was.  
  
Reno just ignored her as he slipped the cold steely blade into the waistband of her skirt and with a quick downward slash, it fell from her. Her panties were just as revealing as her matching bra and the group taunted her about that, as if she's worn them to show they off to them.  
  
Aerith felt positive they wouldn't dare go any further but was proven wrong as Reno easily rid her of her bra and her medium sized breasts sprang free. "Stop" she pleaded as he took a hold of one side of her panties and held then away from her body. He didn't listen as he slashed them open at the side, making them fold down and allow a teasing glimpse of her brown pubic hair. He repeated the gesture on the second side and they fluttered free of her. She went wild in an attempt to get away in a hypnotic display of a writhing, naked firm female body and jiggling breasts.  
  
"Relax, we ain't gonna rape you or nothing" Reno calmly told her and then instructed his men to remove her penny loafers and knee socks. She still retained her school tie and after some debate, that too was removed.  
  
She was now completely bare from head to toe and pleaded with them to cover her. Her flawless, creamy skin was a pampered as the rest of her and almost seemed to glow with how pale she was. She was all creamy pink skin with lithe limbs and just enough curves to make her look lush and feminine at the same time. Her dark hair was still back in its girlish braid and the well manicure short hairs at her groin matched it perfectly.  
  
Reno would have been attracted to her under different circumstances and might have even thrown her a fuck, but what he was looking at was ugly trash that tried to hurt someone he cared about more than he cared to admit, even to himself.  
  
He released her braid and undid it, liking how the kink from her hair being braided made her look less innocent, yet her eyes were still deceptively innocent. He didn't want anyone to feel sorry for her.  
  
"I've heard it where women have been stripped with their head shaven in punishment. Shall I do that?" He asked her as he took a hold of a handful of her hair and placed his blade against it.  
  
"No, not that....." She pleaded, red at her exposure before the strangers as all the men leered at her.  
  
"Well something's getting shaven" Reno declared and Aerith had to suffer the further indignity of being forced onto a table top and her legs held apart while Reno deftly shaved her vulva free of a single hair with practiced ease while she dared not breathe in case he accidently cut her. He admired his handiwork as the lips of her fat little pussy were outrageous exposed.  
  
"Beautiful, Now the final touch" he said, dragging the dazed and nude girl before a mirror in a dressing room and randomly pulling out the most garishly coloured makeup he could find and longest, fake black eyelashes.  
  
"Put this crap on your face until I'm satisfied, cake it on" he ordered her "or shall I cut your tits off?" He asked as he placed the blade against one of her delicate nipples. "I want lots of heavy, black eye makeup" he ordered her.  
  
Aerith gulped and obeyed him and stuck on the false eyelashes and began heavily outlining her eyes, giving them an almost Asian slant to them. Then used the garish green eyeshadow to top them. Reno encouraged her to add more and more until it seemed caked on. Then she roughed her cheeks in an overdone fashion. Finally, she smeared the red lipstick over her own pale ones and she shivered that she looked like a whore trying to entice a client.  
  
Reno frowned too that she reminded him of Scar....."get her into position, people will be here soon" he ordered them and she pleaded with them as she was dragged into the dawning day, a red marker was produced for the final touch and she was secured in place and the words "false friend" were scrawled over her tits in big letters.  
  
The students slowly got to school soon afterwards and they froze in shock of the sight of a naked Aerith bound to the oversized statue of their school's founding father. Her wrists were bound to a rope looped over his stone neck, a rope at her waist held her securely in position and her legs were bound around the thick base of the statue in a way that didn't allow her to bring her legs together and some of the pink lips of her pussy pooched out. "Let me down" she pleaded with them as she writhed in a compelling way. Every heterosexual man felt his penis rise at her slutty new look.  
  
The women of the school didn't much care for her, so they silently filed into the school and left her with the men, they made no move to assist her as one person after another took out their PHS to film the erotic display as she continued to writhe and plead with them. It wasn't until a teacher showed up that she was released.....  
  
She sat in the principal's office with her parents with her wrapped in a blanket, "I did this because I need....need people to see me. I'm sick" she lied in a quavering voice. "I had a friend help tie me. This is how I get off. I'm a perv....pervert. This was all my idea. Please look at me" she pleaded as she got up and dropped her blanket and cavorted joyfully around the room as tears of despair ran from her eyes. "Please I need you all to look at me" the shattered girl screamed in anguish as she flew out the door and stood naked in the hallway as she madly spun around as if wearing a costly dress that would flare beautifully with her spinning...and all the men applauded her lewd display as she wept with shame  
  
The Midgar crew weren't stupid when it came to their treatment of her. They all belonged to a lot of scary gangs with scary connections and they had told her what would happen to her and her family if she tried to pin this on them. She was terrified and ashamed as she stood naked before everyone but would play the role assigned to her as an exhibitionist with a sad fetish until they left and she was free to resume her normal life.  
  
She was silently sent to an institution for counselling and was transferred to another school, where her youtube video was already known as well as her reputation.....  
  
Reno sat with Tifa later that night. She wore a modest bathrobe after sleeping off the effects of most of the drugs that day. He recounted what happened to Aerith and waited for her response.  
  
"Good" was her reply and he wasn't sure if he was happy that she wasn't as innocent as she once had been or not.  
  
He got home and all but fell into bed, only to check his burner phone.  
  
"Hi Lover, I understand you've been looking for me. You miss me? Meet me at the baseball diamond of your school right after school lets out" greeted his exhausted eyes. Then he had to forgo another night of sleep, not sure whether he was excited or nervous over seeing Scarlet again.


	4. Chapter 4

Reno didn't know whether to be happy or irate as the time of his and Scarlet's appointed meeting time approached, he'd managed to act normal to his peers and convince the doting Tifa that he was fine....or so he was sure he had. It wasn't that he wasn't happy to be reunited with his mate, but somehow....he was dreading it at the same time.  
  
He knew she would swoop in and mock how he was doing so well in school, had managed to stay on the straight and narrow and had become a leader of the other nine slum dwellers. They'd followed his example and buckled down and studied their asses off. It was harder for the others as they didn't have his sponge-like brain, but they'd all improved by leaps and bounds. He felt proud of what he'd accomplished and the other boys by extension but knew Scarlet would think it all stupid, waste of time.  
  
Not like Tifa, who was proud of him too and always there to help any of them academically. The other boys sure appreciated her and treated her with the respectful deference they would their gang leader's old lady.  
  
Yet Scarlet was his and Tifa was his......friend? He didn't know what to think of her anymore and had become some sort of weird combination of brother/bodyguard to her. He could never consider himself as a suitor for her....as if anyone would want him to be! He was just a crush she had, she was clinging to him in her grief and soon someone else of her caliber would sweep her off her feet and he wouldn't even be a memory anymore. He frowned at how much this bothered him. He had to get her out of his system. She was just a girl. Who needed her when he had a full-blown woman who loved him, desired him and wanted him home? If Tifa was in his system, Scarlet was in his very bones. She lived in every cell of his body. He belonged only to her. But then why did she need other guys, need to see him with other girls?  
  
It made no sense. He'd tried to tell himself his situation was normal but Tifa's innocent questions had made the walls of his own illusions come tumbling down. It wasn't normal. It was fucked up. Even how she had claimed him from the first; he hadn't ever been given a choice if he wanted to be with her or not. He was homeless and hungry one minute and living in the lap of luxury the next with a stranger who seemed to be more concerned with how his dick made her feel and how attractive he was. In hindsight, she'd treated him like an exotic pet, rather than her equal partner. She taken that confused fourteen-year-old and moulded him into a dream lover. She had gotten him to workout to give his lean body definition so that it could cut glass. Had encouraged him to grow his hair out to give himself a dangerously pretty, androgynous look. He'd joined her brother's gang, learned how to burgle homes as he refused to keep hookers in line, break limbs for people owing money or sell drugs. However, he'd learned how to fight and learned how to kill until whatever traces of the more innocent him were gone and his once hopeful eye were as cold as ice. But apparently his deep, secret desire to be loved had remained, he ruefully thought  
  
The younger Reno had preferred baggy clothes to fend off the stares older boys would give him as they studied the beautiful boy with lustful eyes while Reno kept his head down. Scarlet had changed all that. She had bought him clothes that might as well be painted on to show off his impressively developing physique, she had shown him how to glare back in challenge with a confident smirk in every situation. Had taught him to be a man. Real men repressed all emotions; she'd explained and he had as he became as cold inside as his eyes broadcast to the world. He'd schooled his expressions and showed only his tender side to Scarlet.....until Tifa had bought out the more vulnerable him to the surface. Had forced him to care for her.....None of that. He was Scarlet's and owed her everything.  
  
But where had she been all this time? He questioned himself and the thought brought him to a halt. He continued walking there.  
  
How did she know about the baseball diamond if she'd never been to the town? He wondered and this caused him to stumble and he forced himself to go on, unaware he was being followed.  
  
Suddenly it was like he was in front of Scarlet and admiring the tight fit of her red dress, "seriously, you have a schoolboy crush on a virgin to the point you never plucked her?" She said and laughed in a braying way that he never realized was so annoying until then.  
  
"She's a kind and decent person who asked me not to" he said defensively with a flush to his features.  
  
"And you listened to her?" Scarlet asked with a curl to her perfect lips that almost made her look almost ugly as she gloated. "It seems to me that you oughta give that little bitch a thrill and pop her and then send her to the nearest frat boy to marry, who can put puppies in her belly and give her a boring life. You're mine" she purred.  
  
Reno actually reared back from the idea of what she was suggesting. "Tifa's my...friend and if anyone shall marry her it will be....." He accidently insisted out loud and felt glad no one had heard him and went beet red at what he'd said. What the hell was wrong with him?  
  
Tifa wondered what Reno had implied and wondered even more why she was following Reno.  
  
Yes, she was worried about how he'd been acting lately, particularly that day, but knew he was tough to the point he could probably take on Satan and win. Yet, he'd been so furtive and the dark rings under his eyes and general listlessly obviously weren't from over studying. She felt like a jealous girlfriend following him but couldn't stop herself. It like he was a siren and her, the enchanted sailor.  
  
So both people were drawn forward: him with his joy/reluctance to meet his woman and her, out of worry for the rough, lusty man she had come to care for. She longed to go to him, to wrap her arms around his slim waist, to press her cheek against his broad shoulder and just hold him. To feed him, (she could tell he'd lost weight). To tuck him into bed with her and let her body warmth lull him to sleep. She wanted him to feel safe with her and offer him her gentle support. Of course, not all of what she needed from him were wholesome desires, she realized as her cheeks heated up as she imagined making love with him.She didn't want to remain untouched like some Disney Princess in a tower. She wanted to love him, to see those cold eyes look at her with so much love that she felt she could happily drown in them. But knew he was taken, so she would accept the role he'd assigned her and be there for him.  
  
She watched as the fading sun glinted on his unbound hair, his tall, slim figure looked so powerful, yet oddly vulnerable as he stood before the baseball diamond and stared. She wondered who he was looking for.  
  
"I'm here, come out Baby" Reno said in tender voice he rarely ever used and Tifa lurked in the bushes waiting to see who would join him.  
  
Reno's heart was hammering in his chest as he waited for the statuesque blonde to appear. Would he get the same little fluttering in his chest to see her after months of absence? He used to get this each and every time and lately, he felt something akin to this when Tifa smiled at him. She had a dimple that appeared on her left cheek when she smiled that he always wanted to press a kiss against. Her eyes would light up to see him each and every time, no matter how brief their parting was. Yet with Scarlet, she would always smirk at him and her cold eyes would take him in, her cold, dead eyes so much like his own. He almost staggered at the realization of this as if he'd been dealt a physical blow but righted himself and didn't know his audience almost ran to him when he staggered. He put it down to his being sleep deprived.  
  
He turned as there was a rustle in the bushes opposite him and he tensed and he caught his breath as the bushes parted and a tall blonde stepped forth, but not the one he had been waiting to see. "Rufus?" He questioned the boy, noticing how his cheeks now sported the same tattoos as himself and gang leather jacket. Rufus was a kid that Reno had been protecting when he was on the street. The younger boy was too pretty not to have protection of some sort and Reno wasn't into boys, so, he'd taken him under his wing. They'd panhandled together and shared whatever place to crash they could. Once Scarlet had taken Reno in, she'd found Rufus a job working for her brother, the gang leader and he'd been given a room to live in at their headquarters.  
  
"Hey Reno" Rufus causally greeted him back. Reno couldn't get over the change in him, he was now much more ripped muscular wise. He wore Reno's clothes in fact!  
  
"Where's Scarlet?" Reno demanded.  
  
Rufus had always been a sunny natured boy despite where he lived and improvised background, he was kind and generous with what he had in life, but this Rufus was almost unreadable with his smirk and cold eyes. Like Reno. Reno felt dread wash over him as he studied the younger boy, he was three years younger than Reno, making him thirteen now. "Scarlet ain't coming. She don't want no loser like you. She don't want no scholar who will come back to her in a year. She want a man in her bed. Me!" he drawled back.  
  
"What do you mean?" Reno demanded. Tifa almost gasped out loud at what the other boy was saying.  
  
"Since you been here playing squeaky clean student, she and I hooked up. Stop texting my woman. She don't need your pathetic ass anymore. You the trash she'd kickin' out of our lives" Rufus drawled and Tifa went on the high alert. Of course, Reno couldn't let this public shaming go without retribution. She knew his street creeds by then. He always kept his switchblade in his left pocket as he was left handed and knew he would reach for it if she didn't intervene. Reno would hurt, if not kill the boy before him and she would lose him to the prison system that always failed poor men like him. He would go into it and either end up strapped to a chair with a needle in his arm or spat out as a bitter, broken man to live on the dole for whatever life that remained for him. She had to prevent that, it was then she realized she was in love with Reno.  
  
None of that was going to happen to him, she would keep him safe and with her at all costs she decided as she took off her sweater and unbuttoned her blouse and tied it below her breasts so the cups of her bra showed and rolled up her skirt to almost an indecent level. She took a bracing breath and unbraided her hair as it went into wild kinks. She was glad of the acting lessons she'd taken as she prepared for the role of a lifetime: to portray the sort of cold, commanding woman Reno would probably be with if not in his program. She had studied him, knew how he moved, his mannerisms and guarded expressions. So, she became a female version of himself as she swaggered towards him with a suggestive swing to her hips.  
  
"Hey Darling, sorry I'm late. I was stuck in detention again. The principal was riding my ass again" she complained with a smirk as she firmly plastered herself to his left side and took his arm, preventing him from drawing his knife on the boy.  
  
"Tifa" Reno said in shock as he took in her altered appearance.  
  
"Who's this?" Rufus asked him at the sight of the barely dressed girl clinging to his former friend.  
  
"I'm Tifa Lockhart.....and his new girl" she said giving the surprised Reno what she hoped was a sultry look as if she wanted to devour him and a slight nudge to play along with her.  
  
"That's right, Tifa's my new woman" Reno declared with a dangerous smirk to his own face.  
  
"But that's impossible, you sent all those pathetic texts to Scarlet!" Rufus protested with a whine to his voice. One of the downsides of Rufus was he was hardly more intelligent than your average houseplant and very gullible to boot.  
  
"Just 'cause he was falling for me and wanted to tell her he was dumping her saggy, wrinkled, old ass. You can't blame him for being afraid of that as I'm the gang leader around here. Nibelheim's run by The Puppytats and I'm their leader" Tifa explained to the now surprised looking Rufus, she could feel Reno's body warmth and clung to him as much as he clung to her, offering him support as they both playacted for him to save face before what she gathered, was someone who was once been important to him. "I see the bitch couldn't even be bothered to come see him, she sent her kid brother instead" she declared and Reno actually chuckled at this.  
  
"I'm her boyfriend" Rufus hotly declared, puffing out his scrawny chest. "She's dumping you man" he declared to Reno.  
  
"Whatever, as if we need some old broad hanging around mooning over him" Tifa said with a toss to her head.  
  
"How do I even know what you're saying is real?" Rufus demanded with his hands on his hips. He was irritated beyond measure that Reno wasn't upset that he'd stolen his woman away. He'd been expecting a dramatic scene and to at least get cut a little as Scarlet suggested Reno was going to attack him. However, he counting on their old friendship that Reno wouldn't kill him. Just cut him enough that he would forfeit his place in the program and go back to jail as Scarlet wanted him there.  
  
Tifa pulled Reno in for the most demanding kiss she'd ever given to him and he moaned and his hands were soon roaming all over her body and her own hands wandered to places she never would touch him in public. She was moaning too as her hands stroked his broad back, tight abs and hard buttocks and ran along the length of his aroused member as it stirred to life in his tight jeans while his friend looked uncomfortably at their shameless display. Rufus had recently been devirginized and was still a little green when it came to sex. "Does that answer your question?" She said in a surprisingly calm voice as she playfully nipped his neck and turned to look at Rufus. She made herself be calm as her womanhood throbbed with desire.  
  
"Okay, say I believe you. That doesn't explain all the sappy texts from Reno" Rufus said.  
  
"Me and my girl had a fight and I wanted to connect with Scarlet. But we worked it out. We're good. Ain't we honey?" He said to Tifa and pressed a kiss to her lips before smirking at Rufus and Rufus refused to look down at Reno's manhood that was very apparent in his jeans.  
  
"But, I don't buy that you're a gang leader" he said suspicously to the gorgeous young woman.  
  
"You wanna bring your pals here and we'll rumble? The Puppytats are always up for a fight" she offered with a dangerous glint to her eyes and Rufus shivered at this.  
  
"Okay, I believe you. Just stay away from Scarlet" he threatened Reno.  
  
"As if I want that aging whore when I have Tifa" he bragged.  
  
"Leave before you put your punk foot in your mouth. I don't like my man being insulted or threatened and you can tell your poser gang to stay away from Nibelheim, this is Puddytat territory and we will mess them up but good if they come here. I claim Reno Sinclair as my old man. He's mine now" she said and pulled him so that they turned their backs on Rufus and Reno numbly allowed her to draw him away. He felt like his heart was breaking.....but a sense of relief at the same time. Scarlet was gone and.....he was alone. This is what almost had him bawling on the spot. He had to get away from Tifa, he couldn't let her seem him like this!  
  
"Get dressed, he's gone. I have to go to the dorms" Reno said in an even tone of voice.  
  
"No, you're not going through this alone. You're going to go back only to pick up what you need for the night and then you'll sneak out the window you exited to shame Aerith and you'll meet me at my home" she ordered him in an uncharacteristic way. "I'll make us dinner and cuddle you while you sleep. I can tell you haven't been eating or sleep much. I won't tolerate you being alone your first night after this crap. You came when I needed you after my own heartbreak. Let me help you. I have your back" she almost begged him.  
  
"I won't be much company tonight" he ventured, not looking at her, he couldn't see her look of pity and she took his chin and made him look at her and her heart went out to him at the sorrow and confusion in his eyes.  
  
"Just come, you don’t need to be entertaining, just be there with me. I think you need this as much as I do" she said as she studied him and he pulled himself together and nodded at her before striding away into the twilight as the crickets heralded his departure on that warm night and the young woman put her clothes back in order and retrieved her sweater vest.  
  
Fangs was the closest person Reno had to a friend and his roommate. He wasn't close to eight other ex-prisoners, all of them had the same chips on their shoulder as himself and their own agendas and reasons for joining the program. Some had girls and families they wanted to get back to or businesses to run.  
  
Fangs however, was surprisingly compassionate for a slum dweller. He was an easy-going person, excitable by nature that made him seem dumb to a lot of people who didn't know him and always quick with a joke or smile.  
  
He wasn't smiling now as Reno tried to brush off his heartbreak. "Do you want to talk about it?" He asked the slighter man.  
  
Reno studied the darkly handsome man to see if he was serious. They were polar opposites in looks: Fangs was stocky and muscular to Reno's own lanky, ropey physique and dark to his own flame bright hair. They both had blue eyes, but that was the only similarity they had.  
  
"Nah, Tifa's insisting I come over so we can play house together and she coddle me" he said rolling his eyes in derision while he longed for her to comfort him. The grief and rage seemed to invade every fiber of his being and overwhelm him.  
  
Fangs nodded his head in approval at this. Fangs was the first one to see the growing attraction between Reno and Tifa and know that it was more than what it appeared to the others: that Reno was getting some tail from a local cooze. He could see that what they had was real and had witnessed how Reno had stopped talking about Scarlet so much and started talking more about Tifa. Reno wasn't the sort to brag of his conquests, so everything he said was just about her in general. Fangs knew he was falling for her if he would just realize it and get rid of Scarlet, she sounded like bad news to him.   
Fangs had had to witness daily the heartache she heaped on Reno by ignoring him, how he'd ensued sleep and meals to stare at his crappy burner phone in case he missed a call or text from her and yet still having to soldier on to set a good example and lead them all. How Reno was suffering the loss of his own woman when being in the mere presence of Tifa made him smile like a school boy staring at his first crush.  
  
Tifa was good for Reno and cared about him. Whereas Scarlet seemed to use him to draw other young teenaged boy to her that she could seduce or teenaged girls she could watch him with. Fangs was a lot smarter than people gave him credit for and suspected that Scarlet wasn't interested in Reno anymore because he was getting too old for her tastes.  
  
Fangs certainly didn't like how she had taken up with another impressionable young boy as Reno had told him and intended to mention to his parole officer about a certain possible sexual predator he'd heard from one of the other guys, who had shacked up with an underage kid. "That's good, go get what you need from your woman. I'll stuff your bed and tell them you're sick" he offered.  
  
"Tifa's just my friend. I don't have a woman" Reno said and got a pair of fresh underwear and his toothbrush. "Do you have your report ready to hand in tomorrow?" He asked, changing the subject.  
  
"It'll be an easy A" Fangs bragged. "Now go to Tifa, you're a lucky man" he encouraged Reno.  
  
"I'm a lucky friend. She wants me to apply for some scholarships to go to college of all things" Reno said in amusement.  
  
"You think she could research some for me to apply also?" Fangs asked him.  
  
"You would want to go?" Reno asked him in surprise.  
  
"I'm not the genius you are, but I don't want to go back to Midgar if there's an alternative. You believed in me that I could get good grades and showed me the way. She's right, you deserve a second chance in life and I think I do too" Fangs encouraged him and Reno promised he'd ask Tifa to look into them for him and slipped out the unalarmed window and made his way over to Tifa's.  
  
Fangs stuffed his bed with pillows and spare towels and silently wished his friend the best. He wished he'd made a connection too. There had been a girl he'd liked but she'd almost caused Tifa to fall into harm's way and he'd had to help punish her though, he hadn't wanted to. You don’t mess with Tifa when it came to Reno. Anyone who questioned how much he cared about her should have borne witness to the expression on Reno's face when Cloud called Reno with the news.  
  
She greeted him with that dimpled smile and took him into her world with a tight hug that made his breath hitch, her world was comfortable and lovingly shaped by her absent father. "I made us dinner" she said.  
  
"Nachos?" He asked her.  
  
"You said you like to eat them when you feel down. I made them with chicken instead of ground beef like you like and added refried beans to them" she explained, urging him to sit. He felt choked up just at how thoughtful she was. He wasn't able to let his guard down with many people and just be himself around them and she knew more about him than most people did. How had an innocent school girl become to be so precious to him?  
  
"Just eat silly, it's a meal, not a wedding invitation" she insisted and cheerily prattled on as he ate in silence.  
  
"Now would you like to watch a movie?" She asked him as she picked up his now empty plate.  
  
"Could you take this off of me?" He asked her indicating his locked chain and she solemnly nodded, giving his request the gravity it deserved.  
  
He sat on the couch as she held the bolt cutter to a link of his chain and he nodded when she asked him if he was sure. One snip and it fell from him and he was free......  
  
"There you must be much more comfortable without that thing chafing you...." She said as she went to massage his neck and froze when a strangled sob tore from him, she didn't question what he needed as she sat on his lap and drew him to her. Her small hands stroked his hair and heaving back as she murmured to him in a gentle tone as he sobbed like a storm unleashed as he probably hadn't in a very long time. He ended up laying on the couch with his head cushioned on her thighs, he'd never felt so drained in his life.  
  
"I didn't want you to see me like this" he said in a hollow voice.  
  
"You're tough as nails but still human, you can still get hurt and needed to grieve. I'll help you though your heartache as you helped me through mine because I care about you" Tifa said playing with his hair.  
  
"Why do you?" He finally asked her.  
  
"I just do, accept it" she said with a shrug. "But you have choices to make. I was completely serious about those scholarships. I'm not letting you go back to Midgar without a fight, someone else can go into that grave or cell. Fuck that place, it can't have you" she told him with such conviction that he smiled.  
  
"I guess I had better obey the leader of the Puddytats. Nice call naming your gang after your cat" he said, feeling almost amused by that.  
  
"He's a dangerous creature" Tifa insisted.  
  
"He's fat and lazy and won't even play with the toys you keep buying him" Reno said. "I should go" he added, sitting up.  
  
"No, you're spending the night in my arms as you did for me. Please just let me hold you" she requested.  
  
He nodded, afraid to speak about how much he needed that from her. He so desperately needed for someone to take charge of him at that moment and comfort him. He was so tired emotionally and physically and to be held by a girl who at least cared for him was something.  
  
They both got ready for bed and slipped between the sheets as naked as the day they were born. They both needed skin on skin contact. Reno marveled that they had never been fully naked together during their snatched moments together as he drew her firm, young body against his. She smelled of her own clean natural body scent compared to Scarlet, who had always smelled of perfume. It should have been awkward sleeping, actually sleeping next to a new person, but the exhausted young man was lulled to sleep by Tifa's body warmth. Her presence soothed him and her body against his own felt so right as he fell asleep in the shelter of her arms.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Kalta79 for her contribution to the scene to the story during the dream sequence and suggestions for the Puppytat leader reference and Tifa's reaction to Reno the next day during waffles.

Reno sat up in Tifa's four poster bed and was surprised at first why he was there. Then he remembered and felt a wave of sadness. Scarlet, the only person he'd ever loved had left him  
  
He gazed around Tifa's room and was able to map her transition from girlhood, to being a young woman based on the remnants of her childhood present. He could see marks on the doorframe to her closet, measuring her growth by her loving father. Stuffed animals that had probably been treasured from her diaper days and a pink ballerina jewelry box that he didn't even have to open to know it contained nothing of value.  
  
In households like hers, anything of value was normally locked up off the premises in a bank deposit box or a vault.  
  
Everything in her room was obviously purchased with no budget in mind but for her comfort.  
  
She was obviously well cared for and was being gently raised. Her place was all about family money, mixed with good taste and a loving Father-Daughter team, her mother had died in a car accident long ago. She had an enviable position and a bright future. She would inherit the earth and he.....he so didn't belong in her world.  
  
The other side of the spacious bed that Tifa had been sleeping in was empty and he wondered where she was. Speaking of lovers, he brought a hand to his bare neck. Scarlet had left him for his friend! His eyes welled up and he angrily brushed them away, refusing to cry anymore.  
  
He was normally able to suppress his emotions, especially how Scarlet would mock him when he gave into jealousy or frustration early on in their relationship. "Why don't you cry like the little baby you are?" She would taunt him and he learned to compartmentalize them. Shoving all of his pain and hurt and horrible memories into a part deep inside himself and firmly slamming it shut, that he privately called "the vault" and leaving it there so he could have a good relationship with his woman on her terms. He'd done everything she'd demanded of him and he'd denied her nothing.  
  
"The vault" had served him well when he'd accidently killed a boy in a knife fight when the boy stumbled and fell onto Reno's knife. He appeared emotionless when he wanted to wet himself and cry as everyone clapped; you had to kill to enter their gang. He'd won his place and his smirk remained on his face as the blood from the unfortunate dried on his clothes, this was soon covered by his gang leather and his tattoos were applied that night.  
  
The smirking Scarlet had appeared almost proud of him as she gleefully pumped him for details of his kill. There wasn't much to tell, so he embellished them. Yet he felt like weeping. They had only been together a month.  
  
Reno should have been embarrassed by his sobbing in front of Tifa but somehow, he felt more cherished then he ever had in his life. She didn't mock him, she didn't call him names. She sensed what he needed and gave it to him and that made him feel......  
  
Then he frowned over his weird and hazy dream:  
  
Reno felt a female body firm against his, and in his disoriented sleepy state, he thought it was Scarlet at first, then he felt the absence of the locked chain around his neck and remembered she had left him, and his entire world was left in ashes. "Why won't anyone love me?" He blurted out. "I did everything she wanted, wasn't that love?" 

  
Tifa felt his pain as clearly as if it were her own, the aura of utter dejection surrounding him was unmistakable as he clung to her like drowning man would cling to a lifesaver. "I love you." she said as she put her hand gently on his cheek and kissed him and he almost whimpered to hear those words from her, that he was so desperate to hear from anyone, even a friend. But he didn't really have any there.  
  
"Say it again" he almost begged her.  
  
"I love you" she repeated herself as his second kiss turned more demanding.  
  
"Again" he commanded her as he ran his hands down her arms and up again as he pressed kisses to her jawline and neck and he positioned himself on top of her, needing to see her face, see the love she claimed in her beautiful eyes and saw the proof of how her pupils dilated as she looked at him.  
  
"I love you!" She cried out with such emotion and he took her lips in thrilling kiss that made her bones melt and her full lips parted and he explored the sweet interior of her mouth as he held her tightly against him. He was greedy for her and needed to be loved in the worst way, to feel her silky skin that was already bare to his touch as his hands roved on her in a gentle way he hadn't been aware he was capable of. He stroked her, teasing and toying with her until her needy sighs filled the room. His fingers sometimes flicked in her or slid in and out of her in pale imitation of himself to her heated moans.  
  
She was gloriously wet when he settled his manhood against her soaked womanhood and the petals of her sex seemed to unfurl around the large velvety head of his member in welcome. His breath hitched and he tried to calm himself as he got ready to take her maidenhead. He was poised above her and ready to deflower her, when he remembered his promise and went to pull away. "No!" She cried as she wrapped her long, smooth legs around him. "Take me, my virginity is yours. Please, I love you" she almost pleaded with him as all of her pale limbs latched onto him, holding him in place.  
  
He didn't even think as he surged forward into her and claimed her the way she'd claimed him earlier, even if it wasn't true. Even though a part of him wished it were true.  
  
She made a whine of pain and he held her so tightly that her breasts were squashed against his own racing heart. It had been so long; too long, he realized as he moved inside her with gentle strokes. He knew her body would let him know when her pleasure found her.  
  
His body was powerful and majestic to Tifa as he moved fluidly inside her and his eyes seemed to almost glow in the dim light of her ballerina nightlight. The pain was soon gone. She felt like her heart would explode with all the love she held for Reno as he made love to her with slow, methodical abandon as his pace gradually increased until she was keening and crying out his name.  
  
He trembled with emotions unexplored as he held her tightly and growled low in his chest at the indescribable feelings that was purely Tifa, thrusting so slow and deep into her clinging walls while her silken limbs clung to him just as tightly.  
  
Her orgasm washed over her, that was heralded by a gasp that sounded endearingly of surprise.  
  
His own cry that echoed a second later, was deep and vulnerable-sounding. He pressed his lips against her collarbone and shuddered as he thrust one final time. She clung to him at the moisture she felt in the hallow of her neck.  
  
He lifted his head from her shoulder and her fingers stroked the tears from his cheeks, while his did the same to the tears she didn't know she was shedding herself. She waited for him to talk.  
  
He finally did "so tired" he groaned.  
  
She smiled at how underwhelmed she was by this statement but knew there was plenty of time to talk about what had transpired later. She went and got a warm cloth to clean him with and then tucked them both back into bed.  
  
Reno wondered about the dream. Of course, he'd thought about having full on intercourse with Tifa and had imagined it slow and gentle, how it had been in his dream. Scarlet had always wanted it raw and ripped furrows into his back. He imagined it would be much different with Tifa, that he would want to savour every second of it.....  
  
What was he thinking? His own damned promise prevented their making...fucking; he corrected himself.  
  
He got up and noticed that she'd left a towel for him to shower on the bed and a terrycloth bathrobe hung on the door to her private bathroom and a glass of iced water had been placed on the nightstand to quench his thirst. He smiled how thoughtful she was as he got up and went to arrange the blankets and blanched when he saw the bloodstains there.   
They hadn't actually done it. Had they?" His brain stuttered out at the implicates...and without protection. "What the hell have I done?" he wondered out loud.  
  
Tifa was humming a happy tune as she made waffles long before the sun rose and was chopping up fresh fruit and making whipped cream and smiled at how sex seemed to agree with her. She didn't recall having so much energy in her life! Her expression turned so tender when she thought about the night before: Reno had been so gentle and sweet to her. It had been perfect.  
  
Meanwhile, Reno was preparing to take his shower and studied is own panic-stricken eyes in the mirror before it fogged up. She was only fifteen, was it even legal for them to wed? He questioned himself as he washed himself. Imagining a full-on shotgun wedding with her father training a gun on him while Tifa smiled demurely in her white wedding dress.  
  
"You may kiss the bride" her father said, nudging him forward with the barrel of the gun and her burgeoning belly pressing against him as she gaily kissed him. Reno swallowed hard and thought about his much earlier plan to knock Tifa up and leave her to face the consequences of that. It was stupid. Suddenly, his breakup with Scarlet wasn't so pressing.  
  
Dressing in his usual clothes, he went down to meet Tifa with the nervous demeanor of a man going to face interrogation. He would put on his uniform and accompany her to school when he snuck back into the dorms and then walked out as if owning the place. The security guards were so lax these days, that they were asking the dorm residents to wake them up from naps. Pathetic.  
  
He froze at the sight of domesticity that met his already startled gaze as Tifa put the finishing touches on a waffle buffet that would rival any family restaurant. It was surreal that it was just after dawn and she had done all of this for him!  
  
"There you are, sleepyhead" she said coming up to him and kissing him and wrapped her arms around his tall form.  
  
"What is all this?" He asked her in a squeaky voice that would have made his prepubescent self-cringe with shame.  
  
"Breakfast, silly, I wanted to make you waffles and I guess I went a little overboard" she said with an endearing, rueful smile. "Come and eat, you sure must have an appetite after last night" she said kissing his cheek and wondering why he seemed to go tense at this.  
  
He warily sat down and helped himself to what she had prepared, Tifa really could cook and he sure appreciated this about her. "Tifa about last night, it was a mistake" He said.  
  
"Raspberry syrup? I made it from scratch" she cut in and he nodded and took it from her. "I know my timing's lousy when it came to last night, but I don't regret it" she said apologetically.  
  
"You didn't have to have sex with me out of pity" he blurted out.  
  
She turned her gentle garnet eyes on him. "I didn't; I made love with the man I love" she explained and he could tell she was sincere.  
  
"But how can you love me? How could anyone?" He cried and felt the prick of tears again and looked away and she lay her hand on his cheek.  
  
"Yesterday, I knew you were going to kill that boy and I would never see you again and couldn't bear even the thought of that. I know you're hurting and need to grieve and I will see you through this. I had sex with you because I wanted to show my love for you. I have no regrets about last night and hope you don't either. Please don't keep thinking it was a mistake or that will hurt me. I won't demand that from you, if we sleep together, it will be because you want to. You don't need to make a decision right away but I ask you consider us for the future when your pain isn't so fresh" she simply said.  
  
"Tifa, I killed someone. I've done so many fucked up things. Slept with so many women just to give Scarlet thrills. Is that the sort of person you want?" He blurted out and bared his soul to her.  
  
She listened to all of it without judgement as they ate and he was afraid to look at her as the vault was thrown open and all of his ugly secrets brought to light. He could hide nothing from her anymore.  
  
"You killed that kid accidently and as for the rest, she made you do it for selfish reason and you did it out of love for her. I'm not going to judge you for any of that. I want you; not for what you were or did. I want us to be together as lovers and eventually as boyfriend and girlfriend if you feel that way about me somewhere along the way. I know you don't love me yet, but you will someday" she said and simply took his hand in her own as her thumb stroked the back of it in a soothing way.  
  
Reno felt terrified as he never had before didn't know whether to run or stay there, he was already half in love with her and he knew it. How had this young chit of a girl gotten through his defenses?  
  
"Besides, I've already claimed you as the gang leader of the Puddytats and you're my bitch now. How do you feel about that? You're my old man now" she drawled in a gutter accent similar to his own and stuck her tongue out at him.  
  
He cracked up at this and this made him seem like a normal teenager to her and she beamed at him, making that dimple appear that demanded he kiss it and he did.  
  
"Say I agree to this insanity, that we sleep together and build a relationship. People won't be impressed. Tifa you could be pregnant after last night" he deadpanned to her. "We didn't use protection."  
  
"Yes we did. Once we started our affair, I went on the pill. I'm way too practical to believe that we wouldn't go all the way after we flirted with danger so much. So, we were protected and I know you are free of STD's, your crime has to be non-violent and you have to pass a battery of tests to qualify for the program" she explained. "We're safe to make love and can whenever we want. However, you will have to meet my father" she said.  
  
Reno froze again at this. "He won't be impressed by who you chose to love" he cautioned her.  
  
"He'll give you a chance because that is his nature and he wants his little girl happy" Tifa said with full confidence in her voice.  
  
"I'll do it" he agreed. "By the way; female gang leaders don't have old men. Male gang members have old ladies, but females just have boyfriends" he explained to her.  
  
"Seems like a double standard, but I accept that" she said.  
  
"I wasn't suggesting..." He protested.  
  
"Eat up, we need to get you back to the dorms so I can walk you to school. I don't want anything happening to my boyfriend" she said.  
  
"I don't need your protection" he said as she stroked his cheek and gently kissed him and he fell deeper in love with her.  
  
"But I need you" she said and took his hand as they walked into the dawning light.  
  
So they became friends, lovers and a new relationship was formed that bonded them as tightly as any wedding rings could do. Her apparent happiness was noticed by her peers and everyone already knew the source of it, but didn't comment on it. Affairs between the dorm residents and local girls were normal and usually over soon. You can't have a secret affair in a small town.  
  
Reno felt his grief still at his betrayal and turned to Tifa for comfort, she gave him all that he needed and the solace of her body while he pounded his frustrations into her and she told him she loved him and his own wavering heart found a home in hers. He realized she knew he was no Prince but she was no Princess either, they were both flawed humans and somehow, they made it work between them.  
  
Tifa met with Fangs and she explained to him and Reno both about the various scholarships available. "I want to go to the University of Rocket Town" Fangs insisted. "I know someone who goes there" he explained as he thought about the green-eyed siren he couldn't stop thinking about.  
  
"That's a great University" Tifa said in approval. "We need to fill out the forms and write you a stellar essay to really get their attention and you'll need to voluneer somewhere to really make your application pop" Tifa explained.  
  
"I'll do whatever's necessary" he assured them. Thinking about Aerith. Remembering how she's once deigned to return a smoldering look once while walking in the halls. The sexual attraction between them, even before he'd seen her unclothed, was electrifying.  
  
Aerith had not only fallen from her lofty position, but her reputation that followed her around wherever she went, prevented her from forming a relationship with any guy she actually liked. This made her frustrated as she used to gave a man by just giving him a look.  
  
All who asked her out assumed she was easy or bragged to his friends she was after the few dates she'd accepted early on.  
  
She was lonely and remembered how she once ruled a school. But that was long ago. She'd kept up appearances so that the slum dwellers wouldn't hurt her or her loved ones. Appearing to be the voyeuristic fetishist she claimed to be by volunteering as a nude model for art classes at her school and streaked a few games. She had got early acceptance to the University of Rocket Town and thought her forced torture finally at an end.  
  
How wrong she'd been.  
She moved amongst the party guest dressed as an angel, that is, she wore the feathered wings and had a silver halo held up by a wire on her head from the costume the brothers had provided her with. However, the white rob remained in the bag as it had never been offered to her. She was nude otherwise as she served the frat brothers and their guests beer from the keg, in red disposable cups, on the tray she silently carried.  
  
Her angelic face was impassive as women made catty remarks about her and men, lewd suggestions as she walked unmolested amongst them. She'd struck a bargain with their president that she would serve as waitress and ''the spirit of the house" as long as he would restore her reputation by pretending to date her. Her terms were that no one was to touch her, not even him. They could only look and he'd agreed, but he didn't see why what he was asking was a big deal, she wanted people to see her naked anyway.  
  
But it wasn't true, part of her cringed whenever she showed her body, that was only intended to be seen by her boyfriend. But she didn't have one. She hadn't for a long time and was lonely. So, she silently served the beer as her firm body moved enticingly as her breasts defied gravity and she was oblivious to them all as she replayed her former glories in her head, from when she was someone important.  
  
Reno met Tifa's father; he wasn't going to call him sir and he wasn't going to pretend to defer to him or try to impress him, he decided. "Nice to meet ya" he drawled. "Now can ya please explain to me why ya feel that a fifteen-year-old is safe on her own while you're out globetrotting?" He said in a dangerous tone of voice. "Ya do realize that there is a prison release program going on in your town? Most of us are fairly harmless and all of us are suppose ta be non-violent offenders, but some slip through the cracks that make me look like an angel" he admonished him.  
  
Tifa froze in shock at this and Seamus looked past the long hair, the gang tattoos and really took in the boy's measure. He knew his daughter to be a good judge of character and knew if she loved this boy, despite his being everything she normally couldn't stand in a man, that he had to be something special.  
  
"I guess we'll just have to work together to make sure she's safe from someone worse then you when I'm not here. Come son, let's go eat the dinner Tifa's been working on making all day long, that she's pretending it took only fifteen minutes to whip up" he offered to him.  
  
Reno cracked up at this when Tifa said. "Daddy!"  
  
They chatted a few minutes after dinner while Tifa got dessert ready. "I don't care where you're from or who your friends are; if you break my daughter's heart or put her in harm's way. You're a dead man" Seamus said under his breath.  
  
"I would expect no less and never would" Reno agreed.  
  
"Good and no unplanned pregnancies, College first" Seamus added, causing Reno to choke on the drink he'd been sipping.  
  
"What happened?" Tifa cried as she found her father pounding Reno on the back.  
  
"He choked on something" Seamus innocently said.  
  
Reno and Tifa had a great sex life, sometimes they made love so tenderly, it threatened to overwhelm them emotionally and sometimes they fucked with abandonment that left them both breathless. As Reno's bitterness about his breakup dissipated, he fell deeper and deeper in love with Tifa and couldn't imagine being without her. They had sex where they could and this strengthened the bond between them. The one place that they didn't have sex was in the shower and she wanted to try it but was afraid of stirring up bad memories of Reno's first time. He guessed this and one day joined her in the shower and held her against the wall as he took her in deep strokes as water cascaded over their bare bodies from the various shower heads. It was so intense as she looked into his almost Wutaian shaped eyes and her second orgasm washed over her and she gasped out her love for him.  
  
"I love you too" he gasped out. "I do" he promised her to both their shock and carried her to bed without disengaging them and they joyfully consummated their new relationship.  
  
She slept in his arms afterwards and he grimly knew what he had to do and slipped into his dorm to retrieve the backpack he'd already packed  
  
There were other people guarding them besides the bumbling security guards, but they weren't around on weekends.  
  
Reno walked up to them. They were both close to retirement age and actually nice guys. His lips quirked in mirth that one watched porn as the other was idly toying with his fidget spinner as he flipped through pictures on his phone. "Yo, I have a form from my Aunt that has been approved, giving me permission to visit her. She ain't well. There's already a copy in my file" he said to them as he showed them the forged document.  
  
"No problem" the first one said, barely even glancing at it and he buzzed him out and Reno put on his backpack and walked out knowing he wouldn't get in trouble. Reeve had his back. He was in for cyber crime and by the time the idiots returned to the office, the kinless Reno would have an Aunt and she would be in the hospital and the request for his visit would have been dully signed by her and permission granted.  
  
"Where is he?" Tifa asked Fangs when she realized Reno was gone.  
  
"He's doing what he has to do" Fangs vaguely said, knowing she wouldn't like the truth.  
  
"Where has he gone?" She asked seizing the taller man by the collar and shaking him and he let her.  
  
"Midgar" he explained. "He has things to take care of for your and his own protection. He has to do this. I can't tell you why but it has nothing to do with another girl" he assured her and felt bad how helpless tears welled up in her eyes.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for joining me on this fun ride and thanks Kalta79 for her scene suggestions and the dialogue she supplied me with.

Reno got off the bus and walked into the entrance of the slums and his eyes adjusted to the artificial light soon and his lungs, the pumped in air that had filled them since his first breath when he was born. The air smelled of: the dampness of the underground, too many unwashed bodies in so cramped a space and what he imagined despair would smell like. He took a deep breath, he was home, yet felt he didn't belong there anymore. He had two things to take care of and hoped this journey wouldn't end with his death. He hadn't even said goodbye to Tifa.  
  
The first stop was to the only jewelry store that dared operate out of the slums: Cid's Ring of Memories Jewelers.  
  
The middle aged blonde man studied the boy he knew to be a member of, The Hands of Fate the matching switchblades on his cheeks identified him to be a knife man. The petite blonde that was his daughter, Elena looked at Reno just as suspiciously as he stood in front of the store waiting to be buzzed in. He knew that they both had guns trained on him. "Yo, I just wanna return a ring" he said into the phone.  
  
"Put any weapons you have in the basket, boy" Cid growled at him and Reno did and stepped through the metal detector and took everything out of his pockets and allowed Elena to wave the wand around his person until they discovered that his belt buckle had been the culprit for the alarm going off.  
  
Finally, he was allowed into the store itself. "I want to return this ring" he said without preamble. Laying his receipt down and the engagement ring in question.  
  
The father and daughter looked at each other, it was almost anti-climactic now the they realized they weren't being robbed.  
  
"This here was issued on a payment plan" Cid said putting on his half glasses and studying his receipt.  
  
"It was paid in full" Reno replied.  
  
"You got an issue with my jewelry, boy? You find a cheaper place, motherfucker?" Cid growled at him.  
  
"It were bought for a woman I don't got no more. I busted my hump hoisting fish all summer long for that rock. The quality of the stone ain't the issue, it be the woman" Reno said, automatically shifting back to street talk. He wondered when his grammar had started to change. "It were bought with legit money that I need for my new life with a quality woman far from here. I'm quitting the Hands and going back to school to get me a University degree" he admitted out loud to someone other than Tifa for the first time and suddenly, he knew it was going to happen and he felt a thrill at this. "I need the money to start this new life. I don't want her with no broke punk. I don't need no rock for her yet neither, she be too young and ain't going to give her no ring bought for a trash woman" Reno explained.  
  
"Do you want cash or a cashier's cheque?" Cid asked him. He actually did know Reno and remembered how he'd delivered the payments always right on time, at the start of the day when the store opened and came in smelling of fish. He was ignoring his own policy of no refunds or exchanges that the sign proclaimed behind him.  
  
"Dad" Elena hissed at him.  
  
"I'll take cash" he interrupted her.  
  
Cid went to open his safe.  
  
"You can't give him his money back!" Elena insisted.  
  
"If this kid is going legit, he needs money" Cid said, being a softy despite his gruff exterior.  
  
"He could be lying" she insisted.  
  
"No, I know that kid, he's the finest cat burglar around and he's never tried to rob us. He's a good kid and needs someone to give him a chance" Cid said as he counted out Reno's money.  
  
"There goes this week's profits" Elena bitched.  
  
Cid rejoined Reno and noticed that something had his attention and looked into his display window. Reno was peering at a silver ring that was a band of small infinity symbols woven together. It was perfect. Tifa loved the infinity symbol, was always drawing it.  
  
"How much for this ring? Is it in five and a half by any chance?" He asked him. Being a burglar, he knew ring sizes at a glance and the size of Tifa's ring finger, that he'd measured simply by touch.  
  
Cid looked down at it, it was a custom ring where the customer had never come back for it after paying his deposit on it. It had been a pain in the ass to make and worth about three hundred gils simply for the time it took to make and had been sitting in his shop for over a year. "It's your lucky day, that is the correct size you guessed. Fifty gils and it's yours" he said removing the fifty from the cash envelope and taking out the ring and writing the receipt for it. "Do you want a ring box for it?" He asked him.  
  
"Nah, I'll wear it until I give it to her, that way no pickpocket can get it" Reno told him slipped in onto his own little finger. Reno himself had long, slender fingers and it went on easily and he felt a deeper connection to Tifa, that it was intended for her. He had to get back to her to give it to her and this gave him courage to face what would might be a trial for his very life. He thanked Cid and Elena for what they had done for him and left the store for what might be his final destination.  
  
His appointed meeting place was in a local diner and the leader of The Hands of Fate was already there, he was always forever punctual. Reno slid into the booth opposite him. The huge, hulking black man with a mohawk looked nothing like his half-sister, Scarlet but then, they had the same father, but different mothers. Barret wore nothing under his gang jacket that had a bleeding handprint on the back, like Reno's own. He was topless and wore a pair of olive drab army pants and boots. He looked menacing in person and his metal robot prosthetic hand looked like it could crush steel, which it could. The red tattoos on his own face had faded with age but showed a pair of twin guns there. He lowered his menu and studied the younger man; his face was impassive but still terrifying as he did nothing but look at Reno. Reno felt like squirming at his scrutiny. Finally, he spoke in a surprisingly smooth voice, "you got a death wish, boy? Scarlet don't want you no more and you know what that means."  
  
"And I ain't got no more time for her, Barret" Reno answered back just a candidly. "I don't mean no disrespect but I have me a fine girl who loves me, really loves me and I want out. You can't take revenge on her, kill me dead if you must, but leave her out of it" he said taking off his jacket and slapping his leather on the table, leaving no doubt in Barret's mind what he wanted out of. Barret distastefully eyed his jacket.  
  
"So, my baby sister ain't why you’re here?" He asked him.  
  
"No, I'm going to go ahead and graduate the program and get released from prison. I ain't coming back to ya as the rules decree. My new woman has other plans for me and I'm staying with her. Do with me what ya must, but you ain't going after her or her father in revenge. It ends here, either kill me or release me" Reno demanded.  
  
Barret had a soft spot in his heart for the young boy he'd helped mould. He knew all about his sister's sick obsession with young flesh and it repulsed him, but family was still family. He supported Scarlet and allowed her to live her life and that's how Reno came into his own life. Barret taken Reno's younger charge, Rufus into their place and given him a job and Scarlet had a new toy to play with in Reno. Yet there were qualities about the surprisingly virtuous young man that set him apart from your average thug. He didn't just have street smarts, he was wildly intelligent and had a moral code he lived by. He was a natural leader and always encouraging other members. Barret had even considered grooming him to take over for when he retired.  
  
"So, what are these plans, boy?" He demanded.  
  
"I'm getting' a scholarship and a full, free ride to the University of my choice" Reno said and flushed with anger when the older man threw back his head and had a huge belly laugh at this.  
  
"What's wrong with that?" Reno asked him in a dangerous tone of voice.  
  
"It's not what I was expecting, is all" Barret said in a warning voice, daring the young punk to challenge him. He actually approved of his plan, Barret was a believer in education. His own adopted daughter was attending boarding school far away from the slums and kept safe as he'd promised her mother, his former lover on her death bed as she succumbed to cancer.  
  
However, as leader of The Hands of Fate, he couldn't let Reno off scott free, even if he felt bad for Scarlet's treatment of the boy. Members of the Hand normally abandoned their membership in a body bag. Barret chuckled, "seriously, you wanna die for some hayseed cunt?" He said to test how much he was into this supposed "nice girl".  
  
"Take that back, she's a lady and neither of us are fit to shine her shoes, not even you. But she loves me" Reno snapped with rage in his eyes.  
  
"Okay say I let you go and you become this super scholar. Who's going to take care of Rufus when my sister's done with him?" Barret asked him. "I only took him on 'cause you asked me to" Barret asked him.  
  
"He should be in school" Reno admonished him in a soft voice.  
  
"So, you're asking me to take away my sister's new toy and put 'im in school with Marlene?" Barret asked him.  
  
"I didn't say he had to go to school with her....." Reno protested.  
  
"I don't know if any education is going get into that empty head of his and he'd better keep his slimy hands off of my girl, but okay. That idiot versus higher education. Who'd have thunk it? You got yourself a bargain, boy. Rufus's outta Scarlet's place by the end of the day and if she don't like it, I'll stop paying for her lifestyle and she'll have to get a job" Barret grudgingly said as if Reno was driving a hard bargain.  
  
"Thank you" Reno said with a grateful smile.  
  
"I ain't done boy, as for you. I'm gonna beat you within an inch of your life before the gang and then you can go. I ain't going break nuttin' or permanently injuring ya but I'm gonna beat ya to the point yur ancestors will feel it. I won't use my metal hand" Barret decided.  
  
"I accept" Reno said.  
  
Reno was very brave but knew it would hurt a lot and his heart hammered in his chest, not that this showed on his impassive face as he faced his former peers as they all frowned at him. "Reno here wants to leave us for a dame but we don't let our brothers go without a fight. So, he has to be punished for deserting us. Who here wants to see his blood on the ground?" Barret called them and many roared with approval at the idea. "Well sorry, that won't be happening. But I'm going to beat him but good. I hope you’re ready, boy" Barret said as he roared this into Reno's face with a chilly smile.  
  
"I'm ready" Reno said with a nod.  
  
"You take off your leather and hand it to me," Barret ordered Reno and he did. "Now, take your shirt off" Barret ordered him and Reno didn't hesitate but braced himself when Barret's huge fist was driven into his gut and the breath whooshed out of him. He didn't make a sound besides pained grunts as that fist connected with his midsection over and over again and always and painfully pulled himself upright between blows, until his body couldn't take anymore and he collapsed in an unconscious heap.  
  
Barret took no pleasure from the act and was careful not to hit him too hard "let this be a lesson to you all. Any more of you motherfucking rats want to abandon ship?" he challenged his gang and then told them all to leave. He personally loaded Reno into his car and took him to his home and met the longhaired Wutaian man there.  
  
Tseng was not only a veterinarian, who not only looked after wounded gang members but did their tattoos and was once an army hairstylist. He examined the young man. "His ribs are badly bruised, but not broken and he doesn't seem to have any internal bleeding. "I'll give him something for the pain and to help him sleep" Tseng said as he prepared a shot. "Just keep him warm and let him rest as much as he needs."  
  
"Thanks, Doc" Barret said, peeling off some gils from this thick wad and handing it to him.  
  
"I'll be back in the morning to give him a final assessment" Tseng said.  
  
Barret took the jeans off of Reno to help make him more comfortable and covered him up and he stirred and asked for Tifa.  
  
"You rest now, son" Barret said in a gentle voice as he lay his huge hand on his shoulder. "You took your lumps well and you'll be with your girl tomorrow" he promised him and closed the door to his guestroom.  
  
"Tifa" Reno said as his eye drifted shut.  
  
The next morning, Reno moved around stiffly as dark purple bruises blossomed on his midsection but refused Barret's offer of staying with him for a bit. He had to be back at the dorm for curfew and wanted to spend time with Tifa before he returned. He was wildly impatient to get on his way and grudgingly submitted to Tseng's examination.  
  
"They should heal in three to six weeks time. I'll forge you a doctor's note to get you out of gym or whatever they do at your high school. Take it easy, don't do anything that puts any strain on them and if you have sex. Let her take the top and be gentle with you" Tseng ordered him.  
  
"I ain't no frail chick" Reno said with a chuckle.  
  
"No you're an injured man and your chick will know what to do with you" Tseng said and quirked a smile at him.  
  
"She'll probably kill my ass dead for all of this" Reno said.  
  
"I can think of worse ways to die. You were very lucky Barret was so understanding" Tseng said.  
  
"I am grateful" Reno said nodding his head respectfully at Barret, who nodded back at him in silent acknowledgement.  
  
"Now let's see what we can do to disguise your tattoos. I can't take them off, but I can make them into something unrecognizable and having nothing to do with The Hands" Tseng said.  
  
"Do whatever you want. I'm in your hands" Reno said, impatient to get on his way, but knowing it had to be done, so he submitted as Tseng got out his red ink and tattoo gun and went to work. It stung as the machine worked so close to his cheekbones, but he welcomed the pain as it erased his final link to his past. He looked into the mirror once he was done.  
  
"You put matching smiles on my face?" He exclaimed. "I look like some chick cosplaying some character from a game or something" he complained.  
  
Tseng smiled at him as well. "I had to disguise the switchblades and by filling them in and extending them a bit, it looks like you wanted them to match your hair. Don't you look more cheerful this way? As for you looking like a girl, you're the one who decided you wanted to grow your hair to the point you could wipe your ass with it" he razzed him.  
  
"So, cut it" Reno said when he realized he didn't have to wear it long anymore. Scarlet was gone. He'd always preferred it short and easy to deal with. It was a pain in the ass to brush out his long length every morning anyway.  
  
"You serious?" Tseng asked him.  
  
"Totally, but make it fast. I have a bus to catch. I want it short with spikes" he decided.  
  
"I'll drive you to the bus stop" Barret told him and Reno thanked him.  
  
"Let's do this" Tseng said as he pulled out his own gleaming straight razor out of his pocket and went to town on Reno's hair. Reno looked at the results, the cut wasn't uniform and seemed longer in the front then the back. Some of the new spikes almost touched his chin as it framed his face and this gave him a much more masculine look. He touched it with satisfaction didn't even glance at the wealth of his hair that littered Barret's floor. He silently without being asked, got out a broom and dust pan and swept it up and dumped it into the trash. He suddenly felt reborn as he said goodbye to the last link to his past. There was nothing to prevent him taking his place at Tifa's side as her man.....if she didn't kill him that is.  
  
He thanked Tseng and even accepted a gentle hug from Barret and his good wishes for his future. He walked out of the slums and realized he wasn't going back.  
  
"I'm coming home" he texted to Tifa as he boarded the bus.  
  
She whooped with happiness when she got it in the middle of history class and everyone, including the teacher, wondered what was suddenly so exciting about the founding Presidents of Gaia, even the teacher found that segment boring to teach.....  
  
Reno got off the bus and was shocked when Tifa ran into his arms and hissed with pain when she wrapped him in a tight hug.  
  
"What's wrong?" She asked him. "Your hair!" she added in shock.  
  
"What are you doing here?" He asked her, he hadn't told her when his bus was getting on.  
  
"I came here right after class and have been waiting for hours. I knew you must be travelling by bus" she explained.  
  
"You've been hanging around a bus station by yourself? Don't you know the sort of trash that travels by bus?" He snapped at her.  
  
"Enough about that, lift your shirt" she demanded as she led him into what was her father's car. Yet Reno knew she wasn't old enough to drive.  
  
"It's nothing" he said but did as she bade.  
  
"What the fuck!" She cried at his bruises.  
  
"Where did you learn that kind of language?" He asked her.  
  
"From you. Now you can explain where you've been while I drive you to my place?" she fumed and he did.  
  
"I'm going to kill him" she said in conclusion about Barret.  
  
"He could have done much worse" he said as he followed her into her house. He was amused as she fluttered over him like an angry mother hen, taking care of his needs while admonishing him for being so stupid. He soon found himself lying on the couch with a towel wrapped cold pack on his ribs, a snack tray beside him and a can of his favourite soft drink that she hate with a passion, but bought for him. She fumed as she came and went as she made them dinner and stole kisses with each pass, just happy he was home.  
He was used to this by now and understood that he didn't have to be tough all the time, he could be hurt or emotionally vulnerable and she wouldn't think the less of him. Nor would he about her when she was down. There was a strength in being a couple in a healthy relationship and offered mutual support to each other. Love wasn't about doing whatever a person asked of you, no matter how distasteful. Love could heal rifts and misunderstandings in relationships, it could be comforting and turn a slum piece of shit into someone's heroic beloved.  
  
"I love you and missed you" he said taking her hand and she paused in her raged tangent to smile back at him.  
  
"As I did you, I was so worried about you" she said, leaning over him.  
  
"I got you something. You know I'm all about symbolism. It ain't no engagement ring. Consider it a promise ring that I shall replace with a sparkly diamond someday if ya don't dump my ass" he said, feeling shy as he took off the infinity ring and slip it onto her own finger. It fit perfectly. "Will you be my girl?" He asked her and she squealed and gently hugged him.  
  
"Yes" she cried, kissing him in a way his body couldn't help but respond to. "Oh no, you're cut off until your ribs heal" she declared.  
  
"My doctor said it was alright" he protested, not liking the sound of that.  
  
"He's a veterinarian, what does he know about humans?" she said, going to check on the chicken she was roasting.  
  
"So is my girlfriend cutting me off or the leader of the Puddytats?" He called after her.  
  
"Both," she said with a smile in her voice. "I'm glad you're back and love your new haircut" she called back and he beamed back at her. Feeling like he actually was home.  
  
Later That Year  
  
"I got in!" Reno called to Fangs. "I'm going to the University of North Corel for premed; which is only twenty minutes away" he added to his beaming girlfriend.  
  
"And I'm bound for the University of Rocket Town on a full scholarship and Sephiroth offered me a job at his shop. He knows about the grand theft auto charge and says if I chop cars, I can fix them" Fangs said with a huge, excited grin on his face about seeing Aerith again.  
  
"Group hug" Tifa cried, wrapping her arms around them both.  
  
"I ain't into hugging guys" Fangs said with a laugh.  
  
"Just do as the lady says, you don't wanna see he when she's made" Reno commanded him and hugged them both.  
  
"The Valedictorian of the graduating class of 1994 has a speech prepared.. Mr. Sinclair; if you're ready" the principal called to him.  
  
Reno got up, under his gown, his clothes were much baggier then when he first had arrived, not too baggy, but not painted on as before. He wore his first suit and smiled at everyone as he approached the mike in his gown and mortar board hat.  
  
Tifa beamed proudly at him and so did her father as they sat together, so did his form dorm mates, most of who were returning to the slums for their own personal reasons. There were other people in attendance he'd never expected to see again. All of the Hands of Fate had turned up for his graduation and Barret's proud expression was like Reno was his own son on his graduation day. Rufus was there with his new girlfriend, Marlene, something that must bite Barret's ass on a daily basis., Reno figured.  
  
Reno paused before the mike and recited a speech he'd written himself. "To the graduating class. Never let anything stop you or let anyone tell you you can't do something. Believe in yourself and if not, find someone who does believe in you to support you...." He began as he smiled at his girlfriend. He'd changed so much since he'd met her. Whatever she'd seen in the tawdry punk he'd been to begin with, he would never know. But now he was dating the head cheerleader and prettiest and nicest girl in school. He'd even gone to his prom and to his chagrin, they were voted King and Queen of the Prom. He'd danced with her with him, in his dorky crown and her, in her tiara during their allotted dance. He'd wore a tux he'd rented and she beamed up at him, looking so beautiful in her garnet coloured, laced back dress and so grown up. He was leaving her behind to attend University, but not in his heart. She was a year younger but his new apartment wasn't so far away that she could come see him in the car her father had bought her for her sixteenth birthday. However, he'd already forbidden her to drive at night, that was echoed by her father.  
  
Reno was still too cynical to believe you met your one true life so early on in life but would fight to keep her at his side, not because of fear of her leaving him for another man, she was too faithful for that nonsense but because he loved her unconditionally as she did him.  
  
After his speech, he introduced everyone to each other while the now thirteen-year-old Marlene bragged how well fourteen-year-old Rufus was doing in school while he smirked and basked in their attention.  
  
Upon meeting Barret, Tifa declared she would kill him if he ever touched her boyfriend again.  
  
Barret took one look at the petite girl and had a belly laugh. "I think you've got a keeper on your hands" he said to Reno, smiling in at the pretty, scowling girl.  
  
Reno put his arm around her "I sure do" he declared, wiping the scowl off her face with a kiss that made her blush and long to be alone with him.  
  
Fangs entered the University with a loping gait, like he owned the place. He was now living at Sephiroth's own apartment. Cloud had come out and his parents had accepted him. They even liked Sephiroth. He was going to the same University of Rocket Town, so his parents had bought him a condo that Sephiroth had been encouraged to move into.  
  
The first person Fangs sought out was the elegantly dressed Aerith. "Aerith, I'd like to talk to you" he said without preamble when he ran into her in the hallway. She blanched to see one of the people responsible for her loss of reputation.....and turned and sprinted the other way. Fangs frowned at her extreme reaction but wasn’t going to chase after her and make everyone assume he was a petty thug bent on hurting her.  
  
So instead, he went to his orientation and became attending his classes, he attempted to approached her when their paths crossed and she would do the same thing and flee him.  
  
Finally, he broke into her apartment one night out of sheer frustration. "What are you doing here?" She cried as she confronted him wearing just a towel as she'd gotten out of the shower.  
  
"I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to talk with you. Why do you keep running away?" he demanded.  
  
She looked at him like he was completely dense and drew the towel tighter around herself as her wet hair reached almost her to calves.  
  
"I just wanted to say.." He started.  
  
"Fine, I'll get naked! That's what you're here for, isn't it? To enforce the rules you thrust on me" she said dropping her towel, standing calmly naked before him with her hands on her hips as she glared up at him.  
  
His eyes were riveted to her beautiful body, it had been a long time since he had had sex. He swallowed hard as his eyes roved all over her slim curves and took in the unusual pattern of her pubic hair. It had been severely waxed into tiny triangle that didn't even touch her slit, but hovered right above it. Why he could see the entirety of her...." He wrenched his eyes away from her nudity as he blushed and took off his leather jacket and draped it around her.  
  
She looked confused by this. "You're Aerith Gast and the coolest, most beautiful chick I've ever met. No one has the right to see you naked, not even me. I wanted to say I'm sorry for what I had to help with. But where I'm from, there's a code that all of us must follow. You hurt someone your leader cares about, you pay. None of us knew it would hurt you this long. I'm here to make it right. I got a scholarship to your school and am in the engineering program. I've hear how people make you....do stuff and came to tell you that that comes to an end. I ain't gonna touch you but I would like to be your champion and fake boyfriend, if you'll let me. No piece of shit's making you appear naked in public ever again" he said with such ferociousity that her heart skipped a beat and she realized how attractive the rough boy was.  
  
"Do you mean it?" She asked him through dry lips.  
  
"Yes, now I'll go now. I'm sorry I broke into your place and I'll never happen again..." He said when he suddenly had his arms full of a naked Aerith as she leaned up and kissed him with such hunger as his leather fell from her. He didn't have to guess what she wanted as she unfastened his pants.  
  
He had her roughly against the wall while mostly dressed as her legs were wrapped tightly around him. He was too far gone for tenderness as he thrust brutally inside her to her feral cries, her gorgeous eyes were tightly clenched at the stimulation and beautiful features were flushed in arousal. He burst into her embarrassingly early but remained still hard has he lay her on her bed and they continued their conquest of each other, pausing long enough for her to help him remove his shirt and him to kick his pants and underwear free of his long legs.  
  
Much later, they finally finished and panted as they flopped side by side and he drew the dazed girl against him.  
  
"Fangs, what's your real name?" Aerith panted.  
  
"Zachary Fair, but you can call me Zack. Nice to meet you" He said in polite voice that caused her to crack up.  
  
"So why do you want to be just my pretend boyfriend?" She asked him.  
  
"Well a classy girl like you would never want to date the likes of me" he shyly said.  
  
"Let me be the one to make that decision" she said and relaxed in his arms and no traces of their loneliness remained in them after their union was forged.  
  
Reno had just gotten home from his classes when the smell of home cooking wafted temptingly into his nostrils as he opened the door to his apartment. He inhaled the intoxicating aroma of Tifa's chili that he loved so much. "Are you cutting classes to surprise me?" He accused her.  
  
"We only had a half day due to meetings" she answered him as she expertly added ingredients to their meal and turned it on low to allow it to simmer and kissed her boyfriend in greeting.  
  
"I'm suddenly feeling really hungry right now" she said.  
  
"Sorry, you'll have to wait until after dinner. I'm not easy and do belong to the leader of the Puddytats" he primly mockingly admonished her with a light swat to her bottom.  
  
"Darn right you do. Would you leave your woman unsatisfied?" She asked him with a frown. "Surely you can spare two minutes?" She asked him.  
  
"Two minutes? Don't embarrass me woman" he said as he swept her up and threw her over his shoulder to carry to his bed and her laugher peeled after them.  
  
The next weekend, they were expecting a visit from Rufus and Marlene, where he would sleep on Reno's couch and Marlene would take Reno's spare bedroom. They had a fun weekend planned of the women making their food while he and Rufus would play every two-player video game they could think of. They'd since made peace over Scarlet and become friends again and Rufus and Tifa had become friends too and the charming Marlene had easily won her over.  
  
Scarlet, herself had been caught living with an unaged boy and he'd been caught with his pants down with an unaged girl as Scarlet watched them. A parole officer had reported what he'd been told about her, based on anonymous information from a charge in his care. The police had researched her past and discovered she had a pattern of illegal partners and had raided her place just at the right time. She went down for child endangerment and her brother's money couldn't prevent her from doing hard time or being put on the sex offender registry. Barret cut her off financially as he could no longer afford to have her name linked with his own. So, she got a job in the fish market as a cashier and wasn't allowed to be around children. Every day, she would go home to her cramped apartment smelling of fish  
  
Cloud graduated and moved in with Sephiroth for what seemed to be permanently and they evenutally became friends with Zack and the now, much nicer Aerith.  
  
As for those two, they rarely left her place, making up for lost time and no ever got to see her naked again but her boyfriend as she'd vowed.  
  
Barret still despaired that his beautiful and intelligent adopted daughter would one day carry the beautiful, but brainless children of Rufus....born within wedlock of course.  
  
That's all for now folks.  
  
THE END


End file.
